thinks “so constant a friend as pylades”.
“i” thinks “so valiant a man as orlando”.
“i” thinks “so right a prince as xenophon’s cyrus”.
“i” thinks “so excellent a man in every way as virgil’s aeneas”.
“i” notices dylan is almost done singing “to ramona”.
“i” loves “everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think you should do”.
“i” thinks dylan is singing to “i”.
“i” thinks he means now, and now, and now; daily.
“i” is almost there.
“i” wonders if “i’s” meditation is too long, has gotten away from “i”.
“i” thinks it should take precisely as long as the ride: 15 minutes tops; well, 30 in a snowstorm.
“i” knows it is not snowing.
“i” wonders if “i” should at this point even refer to “i’s” meditation.
“i” thinks “man can embody truth but he cannot know it”.
“i” thinks “especially under stress of psychological crisis”.
“i” thinks what’s worse, anaphora or anaphrodesia?
“i” thinks of the diaphragm still inside her.
“i” shudders at the audacity of her sex.
“i” is exactly on time to pick up her daughter.
“i” must wait another 45 minutes to retrieve her son.
“i” will try and remember to remove it promptly when they get back to “i’s” house, i.e., home.
“i” has fucked with the facts so “you” think she’s robert lowell. (but whoever saw a girl like robert lowell?)
“i” doesn’t care if “you”, silent human auditor, present or absent, never heard of, could give a flying fuck about, robert lowell.
Robert Lowell
The dream, I don’t remember how it went,
For I don’t really dream or count or know
Why Robert Lowell: the only poet shade sent
To acknowledge my cool ambition, light my cigarette.
This is the decade of aughts and oughts
And I am still naught. I am forty. In a tight
T-shirt over my small ignoble breasts reading:
“ALL’S MISALLIANCE”. Downward woman,
Upward fish, said to him: What is it that you wish?
Sir, on a brackish reach of shoal, is that
Where we first met? I want to say it is
But however impressive rhetoric that...
It wouldn’t be “true”. I am a fraction more,
Though, Sir, much much less than you. I
Know how to change neither myself nor
Earth nor sky. I don’t even try. Sailor,
Cousin, Cal, though I am dark and against
The grain, I don’t do what I do and I am
Not plain. And though I stare I can’t see
My face. Or hands. Or hair. Lowell: In a nother
Ten years’ dream path life I would have fallen
Heels over your pretty hellish head,
I would have asked, and what would you have said?
Said? Without vision how can I improvise?
Without imprimatur how can I mature?
Without ground, how can I grind (the cool-
Ing grindstone of whose ambition?), how can I stand?
Said: Sir, Sad. I still breathe the ether of my first
Marriage feast and, man, it’s bad. I am full-famished.
Famished-full. Breed? Idiot up, pedant down,
And that there rag, that’s my wedding gown. Not to mention
Incest, parricide, Sir, miscegenation...
Naked in my raincoat, singing up my
Second rate, I wake now to find myself
This long this late. This low. Alone. If poisonous
Minerals, and if that tree... Which part is dream
And which part life? Which part poet which part
Wife? Which parts his, theirs, and which part wholly
Mine? I see. I steal. Where is the part of bringing it
Back to what you (i mean I!) really feel? Why, Mr. Robert
Lowell, why do we dream count marry die? Who strewed
These flowers at my feet, and will he be back
To make it nice and neat? Green and doomed,
When will I finally learn how and when to leave a room?
If lecherous goats... and if serpents envious...
MY GOD WHERE IS MOTHERFUCKING YOURS, HIS,
MINE, OURS, MERCY BEING EASY, AND GLORIOUS?
no, i would have said: No. sorry, sir, but i’m
the kind that dare dispute with thee as you/
i do with me. i hope you don’t mind.
i don’t know how to have and hold. keep what?
keep where? i lose and fold. unable to make
or mark (or count) as i am taught and told,
