from L'HEURE BLEUE, OR THE JUDY POEMS
We go to see the glass flowers
at the museum of natural history. Outside
the grass is unseasonably green.
I tell Jack it’s a feature
of the simulation.
Do grasshoppers really
have butterfly wings?
Or is this is an embellished version
of the world as it was,
an unreliable memory?
The museum is boring
and closes too soon,
and it’s too bright
even though it looks like rain.
Maybe the dead raccoon
we almost killed again today
was there for a reason.
Jack, I ask, what does it mean,
in terms of magic.
+
One fact about Jack:
He had music playing
all the time. Being distracted
makes some things more interesting.
I would try to see him
with my side-mind.
I trace the caning
on the backs of the chairs,
if I’m bored at least
I’m thinking. Why do I always
have to be there, though?
In my thoughts?
Dreams are like a movie:
just watching strangers,
but intimately. Quiet and apart.
I want to know
what anyone thinks about
all the time.
+
In the too bright
performance space
I stare at a girl’s hair,
its gleam and wave,
and want nothing
more from life. No other
forms of beauty.
Boredom trumps everything.
If you’re bored enough
you’ll never die.
I start to cry and then
get bored; I excuse myself
to look in the mirror.
Abhorrent.
I like Dickinson’s face
but not her poetry.
What I like or don’t
is boring, a tyranny,
even to me.
I would say to Jack,
What do you want?,
but what I meant was,
What do I want?
What do I want?