logophobia

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Epitaph

Marjorie Welish

1

Pouvrette et ancienne
I don’t knowmay be oaths

Pouvrette et ancienne
I know

Pouvrette et ancienne
I knowdon’t knowdoesn’t apply

Low water pressure

Why would water

Why would enhancing pressure be lackluster

in parentheses

Why would there be less to the system

If tampering be not

2

Pouvrette et ancienne
I knowI don’t knowother

Publics, whose
Nitrogen?Estragon?

(Public knowledge does not depend on)
whether I myself know

Ramified litter

Never letter have I written
Never a letter have I writtenmay be oathsan oath

What
is lost [anyhow] through evaporationmay be an oath

If no temptationif no attempt
If no tampering or if non-tampering

Water is lost [anyhow] in the process
Of a life and of

Alias?Nitrogen?Never a letter have I written
Never a letter have I read, received

Never did I receive your
Public lettering

3

Here’s the gaugethe gaugeyou can hardly see,
hear, taste it. The gauge you can hardly taste.
Never did I receive your public lettering, graying. Graying
as a possible world. Graying as a possible world
will have been an oath. A gray scale shall have been
have written. A sampling-of a gray scale
might have been an oath at least.
The gradient shall have been recited.

Pouvrette et ancienne

I knowdon’t knowother

Pouvrette et non-white

Pouvrette et ancienne
I knowdon’t knowplace of death
Pouvrette et place of birth
I knowaddressdon’t knowother

Place of birth may be an oath

4

I knowshall have an oath

Of gray areas whether I myself know it

Which alias? Of a time writing

Are gray areas where we do not know where to incise
Can hardly taste it

I don’t knowI never wrote grayness
Grayness is not an oathis

A temptationotherwhere gray areas where V-cuts

Would writealthough a graying incision may write

A locus for indeterminacy

See hear taste itcounterclockwise

Taste

I don’tlike ascendersI don’t know the ascenders of which

You speak

Have not yet recited space.

5

Littering.Litter gravitates toward the spaced

Creasesthe imbricated spacing yet it distributes differently

Think of epochs and historical formations

Of courtyards:everything in its placemay be an oath.
A quarter turn?

Letterstraversea plastic spoon.

Unlettereda new archive.

I knowI don’t other

A quarter turnimbricated

Whether I myself know it

Whether I might have known itmay know itshall have.

The historical formation of litter

Of litter we have known:think of epochs

Courtyardseverything.

Distraught V-cuts could be adjacent

To the system.Cuts governing

Pouvrette et ancienne
I don’t knowunlettered and low pressure

Make a heapor may

Pouvrette et ancienne
I knowI don’t knowdoesn’t apply

And cannot.Cuts governing vague predicates
Cannot be incised

I know no precise dividing lines that can incise vague predicates

While others say: may not precise dividing lines incise noise

Even if we do not know where.

Still others hold

That distracted V-cutsnitrogenand counterclockwise–yes?

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Category: Language, Poetry

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