Poems
Dark Matter3
1
Who am I
to experience a burst
of star formation?
I know this –
after the first rush
of enthusiasm
any idea
recedes and dims.
2
Each one
is the inverse
shape of what’s
missing.
3
One might try
summing
the matter up
in a single
Judas kiss,
all bitter-sweet
complicity
and feigned ignorance
(From Versed, Wesleyan University Press 2009, page 69).
3This poem and the following may be read (though not exclusively so) knowing that Armantrout was writing under diagnose of a breast cancer, which she eventually overcame.
