share


Social Contract

Formally, I and the undersigned—

What? Use, like Mama said, your

imagination if you still have one

where scripts still sway like spring-

hipped hula girls on Ford dashboards,

where cursive still wraps its tail

around your right hand like a pet

corn snake, where syntax still

stutters, lurches into a sin, a sandwich,

a pleasured refrain; if that much of you

remains, you’ll see them, us, me

(lonely as a broken doorknob),

the possible contours of silent

manifestos.—do hereby request

you speak for us only if you

speak for us. We realise

there is that which we do

not see. We realise there is

that which you do not see.

We realise knowledge

is fragile as mucous membrane,

but we don’t want much.

Only not to be taken,

 

only for hope everywhere—

wildflowers, voice, water.

 

We will pay—have paid—

with ocean bodies, river minds.

 

Let us watch the water rise,

smash stone.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is a doctoral candidate studying poetry at the University of Cincinnati. He earned an MFA from the University of Miami, where he was a James Michener fellow. His poetry has appeared in a variety of literary journals.

READ NEXT

Interview

February 2011

Interview with David Vann

Marissa Cox

Interview

February 2011

I am a little apprehensive about meeting David Vann for the first time. His father committed suicide when David...

Interview

July 2014

Interview with Geoff Dyer

Tom Overton

Interview

July 2014

‘I’ve always believed that an artist is someone who turns everything that happens to him to his advantage’, Geoff...

feature

March 2013

Celan Reads Japanese

Yoko Tawada

TR. Susan Bernofsky

feature

March 2013

There are some who claim that ‘good’ literature is actually untranslatable.  Before I could read German, I found this...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required