Three Poems by Laura Wetherington

Laura Wetherington

Laura Wetherington’s first book, A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence 2011), was selected by C.S. Giscombe for the National Poetry Series. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the journals Colorado ReviewNarrativeThe Michigan Quarterly ReviewEleven ElevenThe Normal School, and Drunken Boat, among others. She teaches in SNC Tahoe’s low-residency MFA program and co-edits textsound.org with Hannah Ensor.

The body, therefore,
after Liliane Giraudon
 
I want no part of an alpha-anything, 
but saying that I touch the mountain means 

the mountain touches me also. 
What chaos can make the fringe 
of a discourse its center.

There are so many ways to enter 
into public conversation
when words train our tongues 

acts of violence are followed by a period of silence.
The rain sounds thunder.
I touch the world by throwing rocks at it. 
I touch the other side of the lake with my voice
. The essence of speech
echoes the sound of speaking in rain. 

Running for one’s life means moving away 
from populated areas. 
The rain, therefore, en haute voix
 
 
 
 
One way to respond is to say “I don’t know” and follow up with thinking. Another way is to present experience as fact.
after Rosmarie Waldrop after Edmond Jabès
 
You scooped up loose fragments of bone—perhaps a coyote or maybe a domestic dog—“I don’t know enough about the world,” I said, and took your hand. First thought always clouding the surface. “Intense interest and sexual attraction are not the same thing.” You furrowed your brow and the debate continued in quiet. All along the skyline, the blank page of the clouds outstretched like a hand. The naked sagebrush did not bend with the wind. We stood there for some time. Then you tilted your head, indicating down the road. Going forward could only be a metaphor, and our shadows pointed east. 
 
 
 
A pitiful century
after Abdellatif Laâbi
 
This generation has turned out to be anthroposcenic. 
So many questions burning my tongue 
hot breath singeing this pitiful century until
there is no longer a disappear, 
 
no longer a leave from this growler. 
Living without regret was the first rupture. 
The second rupture: regret.
 
Suffice it to say we woke up 
from the onan underneath
the moon on our right shoulder 
the sun haunting at left—
 
Any longer of this life is more 
or less an unwelcomed Snowden—
murdered privacies between 
 
what the witnesses mean
and what the telling can hipholster.
(A comment on administrative practices—they’re inefficient,
top-heavy to the tipping point
 
suffering ever the source
while the eyes in silence are talking—)
We’re carried by suffering
 
down through the hurricane season,
now in small earthquake season / the silence is pain 
asleep, and we nap submerged
our troubles in waist-high water
 
walking in place and gulping what air
the boundary between 
 
the how-cool river 
and a life that can pick up again underground.