1
These guys try to make us
match moods to products
the way once,
under love’s spell,
we attached meaning
to sound,
attached sounds to objects.
The old magic won’t work now,
but it’s nice
to be reminded of it.
2
She’s a tease,
tears her skirts off
one by one.
Really?
Drops her petals
as if she could always
make more.
It’s tiresome.
We know
what she looks like
naked.
On a cold night,
we can see forever.
Source: Poetry (May 2012).
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This poem originally appeared in the May 2012 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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