Poems of the Week

THREE POEMS BY RAE ARMANTROUT

Dark Matter

1

Who am I
to experience a burst
of star formation?

I know this –

after the first rush
of enthusiasm

any idea
recedes and dims.

2

Each one
is the inverse
shape of what’s
missing.

3

One might try
summing
the matter up

in a single
Judas kiss,

all bitter-sweet
complicity

and feigned ignorance

Music

Still the run-up
to the primaries.

Hot searches:

tiger attack,
polar bears.

Nothing.

Or a hint
of bitters
at the scoured edge.

Three piccolo notes
from the bushes.

A snatch
of music. Call it
that.

Resounding

Are you still interested
in the image

of this island
as a brown shoulder

or breast

half-hidden
by clouds?

Are you turned on
by chimeras?

The impossible woman,

part igneous,
part surge.

*

Go be
embedded,

beaded, pebbled.

The fickle luster.
That’s right.

The fretwork
of disaster.

Go on be
half

shrouded by

*from Versed, Wesleyan University Press, 2009