Rae Armantrout's Money Shot (Wesleyan University Press, 2011)

Some favourite passages:


Light is the wail of atoms
pressed to touch.

It is reluctance

raised
to absolute velocity

end of "Across"

Here are the young

again,

sniping and giggling,

tingly

as ringing phones.

*

The fear

that all this

will end.

The fear

that it won't.

from "Prayers" 

To come to

in the middle

of a vibrato--

an "is"--

that some soprano's

struggling

to sustain.

the first section of "Sustained"

If good is the all-enduring

intention

that carries you

to the future,

evil is the present's

animal magnetism.

from "Homer"

In the moment of experience,

one may drown

while another looks on.

end of "Autobiography: Urn Burial"

We think the gesture

must come first,

the body follows

by remaining.

first section of "Following"

I write things down

to show others

later

or to show myself

I am not alone with

my experience.

the second section of "With"

In heaven,

where repetition's

not boring--

from "Duration"

To start over

in the carved moment

is to take cover.

*

There are two kinds

of choices,

pirate sources say:

unconscious

and desperate.

second and fourth sections of "Procedures"

If you love me,

worship

the objects

I have caused

to represent me

in my absence.

from "Exact"

Unite my heart,

beaten small

in the secret place

of thunder.

last two stanzas of "Objection"

Rival news hours

mime discovery.

*

In heaven

the soul is sheltered

from the expanse 

of time.

It contracts

to a point

of light

or spreads out 

"all along" 

like a wave.

from "Along"

Money is talking

to itself again

in this season's

bondage

and safari look....

the opening stanzas of "Money Talks"

Money Shot is available in the UK from Foyle's.