September 2010
From “Love, an Index”
A new poem
by Rebecca Lindenberg
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G Gloss, a word is not an epitaph but it is not the thing it signifies, either. Except perhaps: the Word, which may be why it was there in the beginning and was God. Greece, philosophers and athletes, white garments and tragedy masks. In Delphi there’s a mountain fringed with red poppies and where we walked a goat-herder listened to his iPod and to his goats, their spangled bells. Guilt, not a feeling but a way of perceiving the fact that I didn’t tell you to stay in Yakushima, or go straight to Okinawa, skip the side trip. If you can’t stop seeing this way, you become the king who had to put out his eyes. Guitar, covered in bumper stickers such as “I Heart Mormon Pussy” and “Dip Me In Honey & Throw Me to the Lesbians” and “Jerry Falwell Can Suck My Tinky-Winky” and on which you played “Hallelujah” so, so soft and slow. T Tear Gas, it was Labor Day in Colombia. Parades of people all in yellow. We took the funicular up to Monserrate, you caught the little boy trying to pick your pocket. You just teased him. We walked down the winding path they said teemed with bandits. No bandits. On our way to visit the man who sells emeralds we found ourselves in an alley blocked by riot police. We turned down another street and I said What’s that smell? It’s like air freshener— We have to go, you said. This way. Right now. |
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