Saturday, January 27, 2007

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:

At 1/28/2007 6:35 PM, Blogger Leslie said...

Wow.

really, really wow.

 
At 1/29/2007 8:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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...

 

Post a Comment

<< Home