Rae Armantrout
Fuel

1
The sun on my back
like your hand

at night,
in bed,

and then again,

your hand
on my back at night

like the sun
has burned through

two-thirds of its fuel.

2
That you adorn the fallen.

That your heads
and shafts
are smooth,

cool,
a spongy marble.

That you are stock still
and spontaneous at once.

That you are one

(as we always thought
we knew).

 

Long Green

Such naked spines
and vertebrae –

convincing parallels –

upright, separated

by a few inches
of clay.

Such earnest, green
gentlemen,

such stalwarts
jouncing

in the intermittent
wind.

*

“Idea laundering

exists primarily

to produce a state

of equilibrium.”

*

All night
the sea coughs up

green strands,

cold boluses

and swallows them
back in