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Monday, November 15, 2021

Joan Retallack

 






Elliptical Ice Terriers

 

Just as your blades describe an icy metaphysic of

parallel curves, I will be your personal pronoun

for the duration of this sentence. You will be my

personal pronoun for the duration of this sentence.

It’s all about remaining in motion. Exquisite poetries

and theories of everything propel flying spins,

no-hands bicycle arias on the way home. More

reciprocal alterity, more biomimicry, less blood

sausage fealty, explosions of sweetest beauty.

My child, why repeat what some poet or another

has already said—we live our lives forever taking

leave—when a custom-fitted speech act can be

yours within 24 hours. With it you can perform

rites and ceremonies, weddings, baptisms,

extreme unctions, forgiveness of sins, funerals—

visit correctional facilities, start your own church.

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  The poet Susan Howe, 77, at right, and her daughter, the painter R. H. Quaytman, 53, in Quaytman’s house, designed by the American sculpto...