Geri Lynn Baumblatt

 

Wag

 

no one mentioned her error

no one ate the overripe fruit

 

the black page is a famine

 

the black page is an elegy

the black page is the duke disguised

                                                          (at this point the play shifts to prose)

 

he          is wicked and evil, but likes dogs.

 

there is no discrimination with dogs,

all sorts � all breeds � all the black, wet

noses in the world please him just the same.

 

the black page is a dog in heat

 

this is a troublesome caption

I keep wanting to tell you:

the figure's knot

chose possession

or a tangle

 

in this scenario the figure is

the captain & he is unpossessed,

captionless, gentle, almost mute,

and still has her garments.

 

the black page is the trunk closed

the black page is his dumb presence

 

     the black page is the doctrine

     of the soul sleeping

 

liminal and latent�

not at all like a body at rest

relinquishing even

the ready-made movement

 

nothing but possession

without inhabiting the stalk

and shaft of grapheme parts

 

grafting notes as the creation

of an alms house the black page

is the absence of souls in purgatory

 

the black page is the wet nose of a dog

and peopling the world with the notion

as though it were as useful as:

 

      a bob of cherries

      a bird & a

      tennis ball when he is

      shabby and out at heels

      (in another version: memory fails �

 

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Geri Lynn Baumblatt's work has appeared in journals such as American Letters & Commentary, VOLT, the Colorado Review, Elixir, and Denver Quarterly. She recently returned to Chicago to remind herself just how brutal midwest winters can be and to write online patient education programs.