I am already in you.
I am the work you didn't do.
I am what you understand best and wordless.
I am with you in your chair and in your song.
I am what you avoid and what you stop avoiding.
I am what's left when there is nothing left.
Love me hard, pilgrim.
[Sarah Manguso, 'Oblivion Speaks', from Siste Viator]
I ...like? ... this. I think. I need to reread a few dozen more times.
ReplyDeleteBeware, massive comment spam on the way, probably, as I catch up.
Manguso is a little painful for me to read all at once. I like her stuff when I stumble on it in anthologies. This one reminded me of the way I've felt about some people, the sort of insisting I've wanted to do - but it's also the kind of thing that's repellent to hear.
ReplyDeleteAin't love grand?
Or maybe it's about being a writer, that weird way I've often felt like a poem (or my thesis, or maybe a novel) is living in my head like an intellectual parasite, waiting to be downloaded. "I am what you understand best and wordless."
Maybe it's about religion, or faith. "I am with you in your chair and in your song."
Or maybe it's about what it means to be a parent, or to be 'family'. "I am what's left when there is nothing left."
Comment away, as always, ever. <3