in fairness ~
All poems and texts on this site are copyright of the author(s) and should not be used or reproduced in any form without consent, yet ~
keeping in mind the words of the poet Pierre Joris, ". . . I make the arrogant claim that the poet is possibly the last, in Robert Kelly’s words, ‘scientist of the whole… to whom all data whatsoever are of use.’ . . . The prerogative of the poet is to steal directly whatever is of use, without needing to theoretically kowtow via analysis, explicatio, critical cloning or proof of pc allegiance."
Confession
I haven’t got any.
You had a wood floor.
I lay on your floor.
I don’t think I feel things,
Why don’t I feel things?
I got a phone call.
Picked at my carpet.
Picked at the blue salt.
Everything is listening.
I am not shaking.
I could pick my hangnails.
Start at the nail
Triangle of skin
Then a vertical dent.
Long and then longer
Curved down on the thumb.
I can keep going.
The worst is no hangnail.
Skin to the core
Pink and striated.
Dig in my fingernail.
This is my carpet.
I didn’t pick it.
Some color nubbed blue.
Tugging out salt.
City in my ear.
I haven’t talked in months.
What should I feel.
—
Adrienne Raphel