supercheesegirl

A gift from F, I think. I've been working my way through this for several months now, a poem here or there, but all of a sudden yesterday I just got into it.

My favorite from this book:

Archaeology

A girl goes to the mountains every day
Unearthing dawn after dawn, wishing
The sifting bones would rise to the top

Like the separate castes of cream, white,
Whiter, the most white. She will bring home
The pieces of an old world, line them gentle,

Side by side on the woolly Aztec blanket
On her bed. The ashblonde ivory of the tooth,
The one lost rib, the armour of the good hollow

Skull, the long musical speech of the spine
Penultimate to the starstricken glory of the tail,
The tiny symmetry of chambers in the conch shell

Of the inner ear, the dark red gloom of the pelvic
Arc, two withered fingers in their curl.
You, born walking on this earth, accidental,

American thing, wound in this rock bed gorge,
Watched wordlessly as the ice washed over
You till the world was frozen & waited

For the girl to find you there, startled, curled
Into the same dream you were dreaming
In your own jade youth. Then she will have you

Now & need to know: What was it like?
You will answer, monumental dreamer.
She will ask again & you will answer.

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I also really loved "Elective Mutes" and "What the Whales Sound Like in Manhattan". Both of those are a bit longer.