three poems
Word count: 157
Paragraphs: 32
TRANSPORT
Hearse and rehearse?
Rejigger
like any creature
built around a need
it can’t account for,
dressed up--
fanged or furred
or not--
around a vacuum
tube designed to
transport
and dispose of
matter
PRIVATE
1
How should I put this?
The black square
in the dark room
in the dream
moved forward then
stopped—as if
playfully.
*
Walking with someone
through the lobby
of a glitzy,
scuzzy hotel where
a comedian was using
“my” black square
in his routine.
2
I’m talkin’ bout
talking to myself
with borrowed swagger
privately.
TIRED LIGHT THEORY
1
The new idea
is that light
gets tired of passing
and begins to slow
once it’s well past us
as if it had been all for show.
But if light comes to rest,
is it still light?
2
Every bit aches
to be repositioned.
People who keep diaries
love life more than I do,
I think again,
taking tiny bites
of chocolate
in order to make it last.
Rae Armantrout’s recent book Go Figure came out from Wesleyan in August of 2024. Her next book, Safe Rooms, will be published by Wesleyan in 2026. Her book Versed won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2010. Armantrout’s poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, Poetry, The New Yorker, Lana Turner, Granta, and The Nation. She is professor emerita at UC San Diego.