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12.11.18
Two Poems
Asterisk

Cresting the fence, each leaf
sharply particular, edgy, nearly
identical to its kin.

     *

String of periods.

String of period
living rooms, lights
coming on in them.


     *

One’s coordinates

or the coordinates
one is?


     *

To be found
wanting.

  
     *

How many billion
suns blazing
and the universe
still dark


 



Narrative

Scattered against dark conifers,
the seared gold trees
I take for signal fires.

You too.

What do you think
they’re saying?


     *

In fiction, time
runs both ways

and the past is legible,
harmless.


     *

Question:

How are beauty
and meaning
connected?

Beauty seduces meaning.
Meaning stalks beauty.

Beauty breaks down
into meaning.

Meaning breaks down
into dreams.

Rae Armantrout’s Wobble was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award and Conjure was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry (both Wesleyan University Press). Her newest collection, Finalists, is also forthcoming from Wesleyan in the spring of 2022.