for Karin McNair,

Tread water
with synonyms;

trade synonyms
for water.

Rae Armantrout, Money Shot

1.

To stand, against. Kings Mill. An issue of inhabitants. She drives us, in.

The lumber, cut. The Humber. Proper keys. A language, doubts. Flurries of water, lessons. I
could say, year by year. Three hundred.

Banging, liminal heads. Such disappointment.

An accident, stands. Trapline, thins. Slipping, growing shore. The mill wheel. Strange, might
serve. Eyes on target, underneath the comma. Two turns of a cloud.

If any, thing. Speak out, by rock. A node. A war of houses. Constructed, out of years. Seeps
into pipes. Comes to help. We laugh.

Temperance, a colony. White displaces red, as usual. Kestrals, cardinal. The pitch.

2.

The mill wheel, slacks. A polo shirt, an anecdote. The world is human, still. Despite.

Gardens, green. This student labour, summers. French, portrait of a fort. A sequence,
rhythms. Concerning sweet, and simple. The last grist, skeletal. A mill for sliding. If you
could tell me, talk. Of sweetness, parlours. Lawnmowers, swim. Expensive drinks.

What standing, remains. Remembered as our own.

If good is in, momentum. Multitudes, exhale. Chalk dust, drawn back into. Sleeping,
sickness. This scarlet composite. Three deck chairs. A lust of trees, of conifers. Tea Garden,
nethers. Departure gates. We lay indoors. It claims me, parlance.

Junkets, grassy knolls. We melt in muggy heat.