Rae Armantrout



                  Fact


Operation Phantom Fury.

            *      *      *

The full force
of the will to live
is fixed
on the next
occasion:

someone
coming with a tray,

someone
calling a number.

            *      *      *

Each material
fact
is a pose,

an answer
waiting to be chosen.

"Just so," it says.

"Ask again!"


Rae Armantrout, Poetry, The Poetry
Foundation, September, 2007.