From Symmetry
by Laura Moriarity
Winning manuscript of the Gerbode
Foundation poetry awards.
from SYMMETRY
The right and the left are obtained by letting trail behind you a tinge of persistence in the situation. This symmetrical fashioning of the situation distributed on each side of the vertical axis is of practical value (as right different from left) only as a residue of experiences of fixed exterior points. --Marcel Duchamp from The Green Box
CLEMENTINA
I take pictures of empty streets
We had unlimited refills. At other times he walked by screaming. Other people from there have died. But I still see him
Another form occurs during the wedding march. The narrowness of the path.
The figures in the pictures look toward each other
He decides to take heaven by storm
Alley (he says)
The above is a definition
THAT EXPLODE TOGETHER
It gets worse It gets better
The words seem to shrink
He writes about his experience
I write about mine
Song lyrics on her lips
Make the same sound
The automatic movemements were the ones
Isolated like notes
I tell everything in plain words
Thinking against the action
The body changes what is said
I also write in zeroes
The flexibility is exact
He reads as if the words were his
He treats the book like an accordian
She belongs to El Diablo he sings
Over and over they agree
He tears it apart acapella
Her nerves are numbered like stars
Too distant to record
Reading a history of madness I feel confused by time. When
I write to you you don't write back and then you do and I don't reply.
I make you forget my writing. The cases occur during the day. During the
night there is nothing. Your book arrives in the mail. The history is
there like a letter from my banker. She writes about the things that everyone
knows. You complain about me. Those were the sweet times. Or the banker
is in cahoots with the future. It's all part of a huge deal. Depth perception
suddenly absent. The negociations are both strident and unspoken. I look
up from my book as if I'd heard a voice. There were days when you would
be exposed with honor. The madness is that they are over.
Copyright 1995 by Laura Moriarity, used with permission.