William Van Wert

C'est toujours ainsi
les amours de rencontre

longing
looking down and to the side
hair enmeshed in sight
cinematic code
the eyes unblinking
in their narcissistic pride

we call it flashback
as though light accessory to film
exploded twice
then and now
once for each eye

they call it retours en arriere
to turn the body around to the back,
the emphasis on flight
not light

tu me tues tu me fais du bien
devore-moi deforme-moi
jusqu'a la laideur

convulsive beauty
ugliness beautified
in the cannibalization of bodies,
their desires
eating in the context of radiation
fish bodies piled high
twitching hands
shaved heads

je t'oublierai je t'oublie deja
les mains d'abord, ensuite les yeux,
jusqu'a ce que tu deviennes une chanson

arias of shrieking
disembodied pasts
come to haunt the hollow lips
that simply keep repeating

oboes on the river Ota
a chance guitar for grainy sandbars

all along the Loire
violins for trauma scored and shrill
like scared loons over chemical waste
the hemophilia of memory
and cellos for all sudden body contact
especially their twitching


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