Negotiations, by Rae Armantrout

      1

The best part
is when we’re tired
of it all
in the same degree,

a fatigue we imagine
to be temporary,
and we lie near each other,
toes touching.

What’s done is done,
we don’t say,
to begin our transaction,

each letting go of something
without really
bringing it to mind

until we’re lighter,
sicker,
older

and a current
runs between us
where our toes touch.

It feels unconditional.

      2

Remember this, we don’t say:

The Little Mermaid
was able to absorb
her tail,

refashion it
to form legs.

This meant that
everything’s negotiable

and that everything is played out
in advance

in secret.

  -- Rae Armantrout, Negotiations

"Unbidden," by Rae Armantrout

The ghosts swarm.
They speak as one
person. Each
loves you. Each
has left something
undone.

•

Did the palo verde
blush yellow
all at once?

Today's edges
are so sharp

they might cut
anything that moved.

•

The way a lost
word

will come back
unbidden.

You're not interested
in it now,

only
in knowing
where it's been.

~ Rae Armantrout, "Unbidden"

"Manufacturing," Rae Armantrout

1

A career in vestige management.

A dream job
back-engineering
shifts in salience.

I’m so far
behind the curve
on this.

So. Cal.
must connect with
so-called

to manufacture
the present.

Ubiquity’s
the new in-joke

bar-code hard-on,

a catch-phrase
in every segment.


2

The eye asks if the green,

frilled geranium puckers,
clustered at angles
on each stem,
are similar enough

to stop time.

It has asked this question already.

How much present tense
can any resemblance make?

What if one catch-phrase
appears in every episode?

Does the language go rigid?

The new in-joke
is a pun
pretending to be a bridge.

~ Rae Armantrout, "Manufacturing"

Rae Armantrout, "Veil"

The doll told me
to exist.

It said, "Hypnotize yourself."

It said time would be
transfixed.

*

Now the optimist

sees an oak
shiver

and a girl whiz by
on a bicycle

with a sense of pleasurable
suspense.

She budgets herself
with leafy

prestidigitation.

I too
am a segmentalist.

*

But I've dropped
more than an armful

of groceries or books

downstairs
into a train station.

An acquaintance says
she colors her hair

so people will help her
when this happens.

To refute her argument
I must wake up

and remember my hair's
already dyed.

*
As a mentalist
I must suffer

lapses

then repeat myself
in a blind trial.

I must write
punchlines only I
can hear

and only after
I've passed on

- Rae Armantrout, "Veil"