On the use of the first person subjective

Beginning every line with the pronoun I at once privileges the subject, and renders it suspect.

The boy so taken with his own beauty leans too far into its string of fatal echoes— I, I, I, I, I. Paper whites on the table, reeking with rot and fragrance.

This is why, for a long time, only the use of third person objective is recommended in formal research and writing.

On the other hand, there is no one here I can speak of with more uncertainty than myself.

It takes years before I learn to properly hold a conversation, including on the telephone; before I don’t cringe and sob under the heated net thrown by a camera’s flash cube.

Fear of photographic permanence is equated in some indigenous cultures with fear of the soul’s capture.

In the afternoons, nuns patrol the classroom, beating time with rulers as we practice handwriting loops— right, upright, left. I like this time, though— the silence of focused observation, intermittent flicker from fluorescent lights; the script of rain sliding down windows.

Who is following behind me on the road as I walk home? I don’t mind my damp hems and collar, wet fingers clutching the umbrella: its handle a vertical stroke ending in a rounded curve. The shortest distance: one that rapidly collapses two points.

I look into the hallway mirror at the reflection I already know will have no extraordinary response, apart from being there.

The longest night

Such a wealth of hard, glittery stars—
the night so cold and full. Wild horses run
across the sand; in the town, tended gardens
sleep, and the bread maker and his wife under
blankets that must smell like salt and milk.
Fishermen dream of blue scales and bankers
of leathered notes. Only the wind parts
the hair of trees, slipping through oar locks,
cracks in the floor and ceiling. I lie awake
with questions only my ghosts could answer.
Once, I paused at a threshold, before I opened
the green garden gate. Once, I was perfectly
balanced between coming and going. Warm
breeze and honey-colored light. I couldn’t see
yet that dark-suited figure at the end of the road,
patiently waiting; cradling a bouquet in his arms.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Nomad.

Against experts

Up, and after evening reckonings to this day with Mr. Bridges, the linnen draper, for callicos, I out to Doctors’ Commons, where by agreement my cozen Roger and I did meet my cozen Dr. Tom Pepys, and there a great many and some high words on both sides, but I must confess I was troubled; first, to find my cozen Roger such a simple but well-meaning man as he is; next to think that my father, out of folly and vain glory, should now and then (as by their words I gather) be speaking how he had set up his son Tom with his goods and house, and now these words are brought against him — I fear to the depriving him of all the profit the poor man intended to make of the lease of his house and sale of his owne goods. I intend to make a quiet end if I can with the Doctor, being a very foul-tongued fool and of great inconvenience to be at difference with such a one that will make the base noise about it that he will.
Thence, very much vexed to find myself so much troubled about other men’s matters, I to Mrs. Turner’s, in Salsbury Court, and with her a little, and carried her, the porter staying for me, our eagle, which she desired the other day, and we were glad to be rid of her, she fouling our house of office mightily. They are much pleased with her. And thence I home and after dinner to the office, where Sir W. Rider and Cutler come, and in dispute I very high with them against their demands, I hope to no hurt to myself, for I was very plain with them to the best of my reason. So they gone I home to supper, then to the office again and so home to bed.
My Lord Sandwich this day writes me word that he hath seen (at Portsmouth) the Comet, and says it is the most extraordinary thing that ever he saw.

doctors’ words bled meaning
out of a quiet tongue

it bled red and we were glad
to be rid of it

the plain word a mouth says
is the most extraordinary thing


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 21 December 1664.

Nomad

Up and walked to Deptford, where after doing something at the yard I walked, without being observed, with Bagwell home to his house, and there was very kindly used, and the poor people did get a dinner for me in their fashion, of which I also eat very well. After dinner I found occasion of sending him abroad, and then alone ‘avec elle je tentais a faire ce que je voudrais et contre sa force je le faisais biens que passe a mon contentment’. By and by he coming back again I took leave and walked home, and then there to dinner, where Dr. Fayrebrother come to see me and Luellin. We dined, and I to the office, leaving them, where we sat all the afternoon, and I late at the office. To supper and to the office again very late, then home to bed.

walk thin
without being observed

bag people get ash
and air for dinner

brother see me
leaving here again


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 20 December 1664.

Seasonal

Who hasn’t felt regret’s thin blade or its accusatory messages, coming through the streets past sundown like an overworked mail carrier? It’s the season of giving and sending greeting cards and assorted packages— At the post office, lines are long but the workers must ask the HAZMAT question each time, or risk being suspended: Is there anything inside your package that is liquid, fragile, perishable, and potentially hazardous, such as lithium batteries or perfume? What I want to send halfway around the world, I pack in large Balikbayan boxes, paid for by volume and not by weight. Still, there is a limit on what each can contain: how many tins of ham, bags of candy, bars of soap, cans of coffee, tubes of toothpaste, pairs of shoes and boots and bags of cosmetics can fit into one? Years ago, back when I still lived there and we received parcels from overseas, we’d gather around as someone slit open the taped flaps. An aunt now dead had sent black patent Mary Janes and a walking doll for me. Father got neckties and boxes of Whitman’s samplers; mother, sets of bedsheets, a small flask of Chanel No. 5, dollar store pantyhose, and Hills Bros. coffee. Someone asked, is that what America smells like? I was frightened by that doll’s russet hair, silicone skin, jointed limbs. Those glass marble eyes fringed with fake lashes that opened and shut when you tilted its head all the way back.

One last trail of thin
dry stars from the Japanese
maple by the front steps.

To mother

Threaded through, fastened together:
with a needle, a safety pin, stitches
that fused the dried and severed knots
once tethering me to each child
that emerged, solid and distinct,
already resisting. Even then,
the lessons of unmooring— I sank
into an exhausted sleep, thighs slick
and unwashed, not knowing whose
hands whisked them away to be cleaned
and weighed, dropped into a labeled
bassinet. Now they are grown or mostly
grown, their mouths saying no or yes
or later, help me, I want, I don’t
know what to do. Out in the yard
raking, I’ve often paused to consider
the endlessness of labor, how there
is always more before the residues
have been used up or gathered. How my
hands can never be enough to contain
what won’t let itself be contained;
and friends say let it be, let it
just compost back into the soil.

Strike

Going to bed betimes last night we waked betimes, and from our people’s being forced to take the key to go out to light a candle, I was very angry and begun to find fault with my wife for not commanding her servants as she ought. Thereupon she giving me some cross answer I did strike her over her left eye such a blow as the poor wretch did cry out and was in great pain, but yet her spirit was such as to endeavour to bite and scratch me. But I cogging with her made her leave crying, and sent for butter and parsley, and friends presently one with another, and I up, vexed at my heart to think what I had done, for she was forced to lay a poultice or something to her eye all day, and is black, and the people of the house observed it.
But I was forced to rise, and up and with Sir J. Minnes to White Hall, and there we waited on the Duke. And among other things Mr. Coventry took occasion to vindicate himself before the Duke and us, being all there, about the choosing of Taylor for Harwich. Upon which the Duke did clear him, and did tell us that he did expect, that, after he had named a man, none of us shall then oppose or find fault with the man; but if we had anything to say, we ought to say it before he had chose him. Sir G. Carteret thought himself concerned, and endeavoured to clear himself: and by and by Sir W. Batten did speak, knowing himself guilty, and did confess, that being pressed by the Council he did say what he did, that he was accounted a fanatique; but did not know that at that time he had been appointed by his Royal Highness. To which the Duke [replied] that it was impossible but he must know that he had appointed him; and so it did appear that the Duke did mean all this while Sir W. Batten. So by and by we parted, and Mr. Coventry did privately tell me that he did this day take this occasion to mention the business to give the Duke an opportunity of speaking his mind to Sir W. Batten in this business, of which I was heartily glad.
Thence home, and not finding Bagwell’s wife as I expected, I to the ‘Change and there walked up and down, and then home, and she being come I bid her go and stay at Mooregate for me, and after going up to my wife (whose eye is very bad, but she is in very good temper to me), and after dinner I to the place and walked round the fields again and again, but not finding her I to the ‘Change, and there found her waiting for me and took her away, and to an alehouse, and there I made much of her, and then away thence and to another and endeavoured to caress her, but ‘elle ne voulait pas’, which did vex me, but I think it was chiefly not having a good easy place to do it upon. So we broke up and parted and I to the office, where we sat hiring of ships an hour or two, and then to my office, and thence (with Captain Taylor home to my house) to give him instructions and some notice of what to his great satisfaction had happened to-day. Which I do because I hope his coming into this office will a little cross Sir W. Batten and may do me good. He gone, I to supper with my wife, very pleasant, and then a little to my office and to bed. My mind, God forgive me, too much running upon what I can ‘ferais avec la femme de Bagwell demain’, having promised to go to Deptford and ‘a aller a sa maison avec son mari’ when I come thither.

we go out on strike
left eye as poor as a cog
heart forced to sing an impossible part
ear a well for the mad
the no-good hips

what faction lit up the mind


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 19 December 1664.

Having met my corpse,

I consider what outfit to dress her in,

and what colors are most becoming. I consider
whether she will need one meal or three;

if she would be more at home in the wilderness
than on the 9th floor of an apartment building.

Since time is after all the most invincible
thing compared to our suffering, what

would be the best use of her time? She knows
the fleeting warmth of a body beside hers in bed,

the yeasty smell of fresh bread; the way a drink
of cool water courses down the throat— as if

it could find its way to each bone’s marrow when one
is restless in the night, unable to go back to sleep.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Vanity.

Eremetic

(Lord’s day). To church, where, God forgive me! I spent most of my time in looking my new Morena at the other side of the church, an acquaintance of Pegg Pen’s. So home to dinner, and then to my chamber to read Ben Johnson’s Cataline, a very excellent piece, and so to church again, and thence we met at the office to hire ships, being in great haste and having sent for several masters of ships to come to us. Then home, and there Mr. Andrews and Hill come and we sung finely, and by and by Mr. Fuller, the Parson, and supped with me, he and a friend of his, but my musique friends would not stay supper. At and after supper Mr. Fuller and I told many storys of apparitions and delusions thereby, and I out with my storys of Tom Mallard. He gone, I a little to my office, and then to prayers and to bed.

Lord here I am
in a cell

having sung a fuller music
of delusions

I out my stories:
all gone to prayers


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 18 December 1664.

Coexisting 101

We say each other’s names.
—Luisa A. Igloria, “Inhabiting

that now we can say each other’s names
without shame without yesterday’s shadows
—incognito glasses off!—
without a glance over one’s shoulder
to check if a nosy someone is eavesdropping
that now we can swim into, and naturally claim,
each other’s space without feeling crowded
that now we’ve learned not to outpace
one another but to walk in an unhurried
step by step to somewhere or nowhere
that now we can breathe each other’s scent
and hold on to it with our tongues

absolutely
and most certainly
now we can