Rae Armantrout's Next Life (Wesleyan University Press, 2007), first selection

Here are some favourite passages--indeed, I have so many, I need to break them up into two posts!



Not getting lost
but looping
then extending myself

afresh,
starburst,

reversing myself
as if turning
to face a partner

last section of "Reserved"

(Echo persuades us

everything we say

has been said at least once

                                                    before.)

* * * 

Is it the beginning or end

of real love

when we pity a person

because, in him,

we see ourselves?

from "Two, Three"

Now's hopeful

pucker.

from "As (2)"

I have enough past

and future

to accompany me now.

from "Blur"

If each moment is in love

with its image

in the mirror of

adjacent moments

(as if matter stuttered),

then, of course, we're restless!

from "The Subject"

The very old man shuffles very slowly

not between

the white lines of a crosswalk

but down one of them.

Like a figure in a dream

his relation to meaning

is ominous

the last section of "Agreement"