Quan Barry
you are standing at the ocean,
in the moon’s empirical light
each mercurial wave
like a parabola shifting on its axis,
the sea’s dunes differentiated & graphed.
If this, then that. The poet
laughs. She wants to lie
in her own equation, the point slope
like a woman whispering stay me
with flagons. What is it to know the absolute value
of negative grace, to calculate
how the heart becomes the empty set
unintersectable, the first & the last?
But enough.
You are standing on the shore,
the parameters like wooden stakes.
Let x be the moon like a notary.
Let y be all things left unsaid.
Let the constant be the gold earth
waiting to envelop what remains,
the sieves of the lungs like two cones.
—Amy Quan Barry
2 Comments:
Wow.
really, really wow.
A lovely poem indeed. Her book Controvertibles is really something - well worth diving into. I've just introduced a poet friend to it and thus (happily) will not see my copy for months...
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