Find and share the perfect poems.
1
To each his own
severance package.
The Inca
hacked large stones
into the shapes of
nearby peaks.
2
The eerie thing
is that ghosts don’t exist.
Rows
of clear droplets
hang from stripped twigs
instead.
3
Pain brings attention
to herself.
Spine on Fire!
Trail Blazer!
(Thinks she’s hot.)
Out here
slim trunks bend
every which
“Instead” from Partly: New and Selected Poems, 2001-2015. © 2016 by Rae Armantrout. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.
1
In the first cartoons
the mutability of forms
was a laugh riot:
bouncing biceps,
one foot growing huge
to stomp a cricket—
and staying that way.
The aye-aye’s
first finger.
Dressed all in plastic,
which means oil,
we’re bright-eyed, scrambling
for the colored cubes
spilled
on the rug’s polymer.
Inside each
is a tiny car.
When we can’t unscrew the tops
we cry for help.
1
We encountered a problem
sending
a command
to the program.
Did I say that
aloud?
I’ve broken out
in imps.
*
To be a blip
in a circuit
and to know it,
to relish
this knowledge
in your private
moments
as all moments
are gated
and switched.
2
When I mentioned hatred
I was not thinking
of you,
but you’d best not break
our momentum,