Gestern, yesterday, yesterday’s, of yesterday, day before yesterday
Diane Raptosh
All instinct is memory of the initial moment, as these lines are.
Today is outbreath’s tomorrow and yesterday’s rerun.
New day to note views of those who refuse to feel things.
Here comes a headline: The Terminator Speaks on the Big Issues.
Schwarzenegger means place of the black corner, egg or edge.
I am a fractal of him, a foolish girl-twin.
The last hurrah of separation is what we’re living through.
The black egg I bear in myself: As of today
I still feel I am not enough | too much all in one yoke.
I feel like a brute each day I’m not helping my brother.
To be a subject seems an act of aggression—too much to assert on the world,
but here I am doing it. This next thought seals my whole past: Maybe if I bind the right sounds,
I can make a bright dress of my mother, re-leg my brother, then move on to upgrade creation.
Perhaps you have heard of this complex.
Diane Raptosh’s collection American Amnesiac (Etruscan Press), was longlisted for the 2013 National Book Award in poetry. The recipient of three fellowships in literature from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, she served as the Boise Poet Laureate (2013) as well as the Idaho Writer-in-Residence (2013–2016). In 2018 she won the Idaho Governor’s Arts Award in Excellence. She teaches literature and creative writing and co-directs the program in Criminal Justice/Prison Studies at the College of Idaho. Her ninth book, I Eric America, will be published in fall 2024 (Etruscan Press). www.dianeraptosh.com
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