1
What do we like best
about ourselves?
Our inability
to be content.
We might see this
restlessness
as a chip
not yet cashed in.
2
You appear
because you’re lonely
maybe.
You would not say that.
You come to tell me
you’re saving money
by cooking for yourself.
You’ve figured out
what units you’ll need
to exchange for units
if you intend
I know I mustn’t
interrupt
3
Hectic and flexible,
flames
are ideal
new bodies for us!
Source: Poetry (October 2011).
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This poem originally appeared in the October 2011 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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