Covers
slapped her bottom
like a man did
in a video,
then he waited
as if for shadow
to completely cover the sun.
Moments later
archeologists found him.
*
The idea that they were reenacting something which had been staged in the first place bothered her. If she wanted to go on, she’d need to ignore this limp chronology. She assumed he was conscious of the same constraint. But she almost always did want to proceed. Procedure! If only either one of them believed in the spontaneity of the original actors and could identify with one. Be one. For this to work, she reasoned, one of us would have to be gone.
*
“Well, look who missed
the fleeting moment,”
Green Giant gloats
over dazed children.
If to transpose
is to know,
we can cover our losses.
But only
If talking,
Formerly food,
Now meant
Not now
So recovery
Ran rings.
If to traverse
is to envelop,
I am held
and sung to sleep.
Rae Armantrout, “Covers” from Veil: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2001 by Rae Armantrout. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.
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Poet Rae Armantrout b. 1947
POET’S REGION U.S., Western
SCHOOL / PERIOD Language Poetry
Subjects Relationships, Love, Men & Women, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics, Heartache & Loss, Realistic & Complicated
Poetic Terms Free Verse, Prose Poem, Mixed
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Relationships, Love, Men & Women, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics, Heartache & Loss, Realistic & Complicated
POET’S REGION U.S., Western
SCHOOL / PERIOD Language Poetry
Poetic Terms Free Verse, Prose Poem, Mixed
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