K e l l y C l a r e —
INFINITE GROCERY
Three leftover shallots. Little finite mirror
article like flint
alongside the chilled false peppers. A mirror folds
surface tasted index
every sweater into the impossible aisles, every
wards wheeling picked
lean-to dairy-hand and lettuce head. Free, mirror
index arrive upper
samples abound. They reverse. Cardboard butters
corner pat fruited
and tiny yoghurt locations. Duplicate red foil, silver
whirr swerve square
foil, blue foil, white opaque lettered. Mirror foil
box bean boxed
with a gold cow. Aluminum foil flashing away
melted safe answer
the underneath safely. A foil corvid and
like winter like
spoon-able and without soil. A mirror without
utensil rake reverse
udder and without the mine. Foil comes
hewing positive ion
from dredging up revision. Mirror’s just pressure
positive how alike
without ferment. A metal mine sealing off
impression made mixture
one hum of micro from the teeming
field flimsy glass
others. An alcohol wiped mirror. Set in the sink.
start faucet rotor
Dawny washed. Revision: the misters
mine mine mine
static the air. Wet the skin and shine.
PIXEL
A window over,
the tulip mitten
pattern
threaded with
emails. Each
thing thwack
-ing the digital
crystals. Display
shift. Purl
to knit. Click to
hot gay witch
now covered
in near death
makeup. Click
to hot gay witch
on illegal streaming
platform. Green
screen the longing
into view. Playback
the resurrection
of an order. End
of an age, buffer.
work/progress
I AM ALLOWED TO TRY TO SURPRISE MYSELF
Here, we are
turning the whole
thing inside out!
A cat not just
in the bag but
on top of it!
Her name is
Ramona and she
hates poetry!
FOIL PLANS
Trying to make the concrete float!
Trying to undo the calendar year!
A modular crumble sits in the dish!
Time blocks and blocks and becomes
the application fence, the cable quilt!
Pulling the copper over the light!
Open the cast app! Where is your
time block! Every cable installs itself!
Every cable becomes a wooly hat!
The hat whispers community fission!
The hat measures only the bandwidth!
To co-chair the task force! To petition
the calendar for a better process!
Participatory fence decisions!
Continuous fiberoptic burrowing!
We are bamboozled by a fire wall
of expertly patterned daily networks!
Clearly the perspective is a wall alone.
Clearly this time blocks itself along.
FOR NANCY FOR NORA
a poem play originally broadcast as a part of “People Speaking Art” on KRUI in Iowa City
one: what counts as a surface
two: a surface?
one: like an inner lining. a soft suede? the air, for example
two: the air is never exemplary
one: no, no, a surface is like a dog
two: is the dog in a backyard?
one: yes, and let’s say the dog is name nancy
two: nancy is a surface
one: yes, as surfaced as a grocery, as surfaced as a sofa
two: nancy the sofa
one: nancy the surfaced
two: like she is swimming?
one: like she can carry the whole every
two: if she licks me face, am I also a surface?
one: everything is already a surface, even if it doesn’t know it
two: my large incredible headphones are surfaces?
one: yes
two: the daily crossword?
one: the crossword is ON-LINE, though the screen is a surface
two: so the words, floating in little squares, are not surfaces
one: the word refuses to be a surface, though it sometimes masquerades
two: but if the screen is in a room and Nancy the surface licks the screen—
one: yes, yes
two: tell me more about this ON-LINE
one: it is not a rope, it is made of light, it is the thing behind the screen behind the light of the screen behind the metals if you pry the screen open like a box.
two: uh-huh
one: it is a shapeless but viewed through a rectangle
two: why the rectangle
one: nancy had swallowed the circle cap we had meant to employ
two: the circle was chewed into a thrown-up shape
one: yeah, it was pretty bad
two: the plastic gatorade cap was a surface to nancy, I don’t blame her
one: in the backyard, the lines above our heads were indications of the ON-LINE
two: in the backyard, we lit a fire below the lines to confuse the surfaces
one: you mean gnats
two: I mean aphids
one: you mean beetles
two: no, I mean the white flies eating our tomatoes
one: what I love about the ON-LINE is that no wasps die in our apple-cider vinegar traps
two: apple-cider vinegar is a surface
one: yes
two: so the ON-LINE comes to us through surfaces, through light
one: it is a collapse of surface into action
two: but it disavows rubbing one’s face in cake batter, throwing oneself into a bin of potatoes, etc.
one: so maybe not action, maybe the instantaneous
two: sloughing off surface like that, it’s a little creepy
one: it’s just like yelling across a field, no big deal
two: like if we stood really far apart and waved our flags and yelled, the spontaneity of sight would supply us with a similar feeling
one: precisely
two: a whoosh of quickly reading the actions of another, made into light
one: we would be post-surface
two: we would be post AND surface
one: we would be two people waving in a field and because no one is really alone, there would be other people
two: people watching the ON-LINE take place, holding up little rectangles, repeating our action
one: we would be an echo of the screen, then, I guess
two: I miss nancy
one: nancy is in a backyard with a gatorade cap in her mouth and she is incredibly happy
.