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Our Nature

Our Nature

By Rae Armantrout b. 1947 Rae Armantrout

The very flatness

of portraits

makes for nostalgia

in the connoisseur.

Here’s the latest

little lip of wave

to flatten

and spread thin.

Let’s say

it shows our recklessness,

our fast gun,

our self-consciousness

which was really

our infatuation

with our own fame,

our escapes,

the easy way

we’d blend in

with the peasantry,

our loyalty

to our old gang

from among whom

it was our nature

to be singled out

Rae Armantrout, "Our Nature" from Veil. Copyright © 2001 by Rae Armantrout. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Veil (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)

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Poet Rae Armantrout b. 1947

POET’S REGION U.S., Western

SCHOOL / PERIOD Language Poetry

Subjects Living, Coming of Age, Life Choices, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Arts & Sciences, Painting & Sculpture