of family       that web of rock       of strangers

that web of eyes         of lovemaking          that momentary web

           that piano of tremors!               a little indisposed

     to satisfaction           a little afraid of morning       the fixity

                    of blue and dark orbs             and evening

     this one gossamer life          a little indisposed to     definable

          a little in awe   of the water-lily          its worldly resolve

__

YOUNG LADIES ARE HUMAN

Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know.
—Mr. Brooke to Mr. Casaubon, Middlemarch

young ladies understand the dead
carry ancient circles
young ladies understand imperfect
and are
young ladies are fastidious
in ruin
understand sin
a circle of young ladies
gallops over the hedge
young ladies are ancient
young ladies are human
feed them

__

COME I CAN'T

I came
to the edge of
then
the task of it

ruin

well?

your mouth
paused to ask

I rarely come
but alone w/ butterfly

good try though
upon my sweet hedge
yes
you're a good lay
(where, blame?)

I can't

confess my body

has a bias
'gainst bliss

__

These are from a series of poems titled MIDDLE_ARC_ which was born in a workshop with Eileen Myles. She pulled out of her bag a copy of the George Eliot classic Middlemarch and read aloud while we wrote down words from the book. Then we composed poems using only the words we had noted. I liked the odd little poem that I came up with so I continued to do this on my own with Middlemarch. It has since become my favorite way to write because it allows me to surprise myself, I always have words at my disposal so no writer's block, and whatever I'm thinking about or obsessed with in that moment comes through Eliot's lexicon, often things I couldn't express otherwise. Mysteriously a hedge has appeared in almost every poem.