erica kaufman

 
 

 

to tell you


these forms of beauty have not been to me
as is a landscape to a blind man’s lie 
                  (“Tintern Abbey” by Wordsworth)

I.
a teaspoon
of ketchup is more
important than capitalism

or the problem of how
to read billboards, lawyers,
diction as the experience

of embracing the leeches.
i don’t control my own
metaphors humanized

amputation a straw taken
to the puss of the road.

II.
if she never photographs
the hair on the mirror
i’ll wear the face

of upright lamentation
half fixed melancholy
half i can still sidestroke

and say, you need to have awe
to be mercenary.  or, look at me
as if you are grooming a tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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