A mix of little lines and long
lines that cross over each other in sentiment.
Conversational language and varying forms investigate the making of
meaning and feeling.
Momentarily
We exchanged things, not money, both underfoot, another place, space,
another country. Better food and manners, easier, on the eyes which
do greet you as they meet you, in the room. Both of us bleeding, infected,
inexplicably, in places that touch. Leaving me to crave this bad taste,
while ashamedly turned off, dauntingly quick, and small. How foolishly
I revealed that dream. No, not entered, occupied by forlorn desire,
the assertion that better life is better left untrembled, unfettered.
Most brave in this most touching epidemic of care...A riot. Of need,
baby mice, solitary cricket (singing) the occasional frog clawed and
pressed into. Savagery impresses me. I stare at their willingness
to devour each other continuously upon the dim lit dirt, not a city
but industry busy. Deaf from the activity. No unintended, untrained
in avoidance by the eye which no longer looks for that thing, that
promise of youth, but demands another, matte finish, the body underneath
and pleased about it. In fact a terrifying position, separate and
foreign. I'd rather sleep.
Rachel Levitsky is a poet and
teacher from Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of three other
chapbooks: 2(1x1) Portraits (Baksun Books, 1998); The Adventures
of Yaya and Grace (Potes & Poets, 1999) & Cartographies
of Error (Leroy, 1999).
