1
We like to think
that the mind
controls the body.
We send the body on a mission.
We don’t feel the body,
but we receive conflicting reports.
The body is catching flak
or flies.
The body is sprouting grapefruit.
The body is under-
performing in heavy
trading.
2
Reception is spotty.
Someone “just like me”
is born
in the future
and I don’t feel a thing?
Like only goes so far.
Source: Poetry (April 2010).
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This poem originally appeared in the April 2010 issue of Poetry magazine
Rae Armantrout, one of the founding members of the West Coast group of Language poets, stands apart from other Language poets in her lyrical voice and her commitment to the interior and the domestic. Her short-lined poems are often concerned with dismantling conventions of memory, pop culture, science, and mothering, and these unsparing interrogations are often streaked with wit. “You can hold the various elements of my poems in . . .
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