Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout

received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection “Versed.” Her new book, “Conjure,” will be out in October.

DIMENSIONS

Think of

a cowboy hat
on a bobble-head
AI
atop the dash
of an electric car
in China

as depth.

Then length
is the difference

between these bare ribs
of cloud

and your white hair
somewhere

in the scrum.

THE HITCH

     For Sean Carroll

For starters,
to be a wave function,
you would need to be
the sum
of an imaginary number
and a real one.

*

After the hitch,
time progresses normally,
towards the beginning
of a series
of largely predictable
minor events,
mixing the pleasant
with the unpleasant
and agitating
gently

until an optimal level of awareness
is achieved

*

You would also need
to change.

HORROR MOVIES

Once the commotion’s
all over

the horror is really
that the shadow
is still there,

the clock, the mantel,
the doorway—open
and shut cases.

This steady tick
with what to measure?

ENEMIES

If you could only hear yourself.

*

Farmhouse Furniture Depot

Hometown Buffet
                       Depot

Home of the Railway Museum.

*

Psychotics hear themselves think.

Finish the job.

Sentences are enemies.