“If you can condense, what remains is more energetic. It can be more explosive.”

Let Scott equal “I.”

Scott says, “I
asked my team
to pull your records.”

A human begins
by claiming

to be something else:

a red bird
in a picture book;

a little red
Corvette.

We wanted to tell someone everything

(or everyone something)—

how large and limp

the leaves were

in the half-sun,

but what is “half-sun,”

finally?

What’s to like
if not contrast?

Shadows beneath
the model’s sharp

cheekbones, her ample
yet precise lips.

Don’t worry.
We have armies
of showrunners

 

No lie!
Need input!
Not ghosting you!

More than a fistful
of stubby green fingers
pushing up through gravel.

Unlikely, 
the homelife
of water

 

The brain has powerful filters
that screen out most
thoughts and images:

Flag lolling 
on its pole
like a dog’s tongue.

With us, it’s about
choices.
How many kinds

Rae Armantrout recalls her childhood encounter with Zane Grey’s “Riders of the Purple Sage.”