Partly. Rae Armantrout
Money Talks 162
Acknowledgments for New Poems in Partly 235
New Poems
Legacy
“Do words just pop
into your head?”
Some may go
unexploded.
–
“Have you thought much
about your legacy?”
I’m a legacy
prisoner.
No I’m not.
–
“What do you call precious?”
The precious doesn’t
get around much
so it stays small.
Or it orbits
the same small
pronoun,
a kid
on a carousel.
“Look at me!”
It fiddles
with itself.
But I’ve got bigger things
to pick up
and put down.
In Front
Tree in new leaf
in front of
a brick building
with narrow
white-wood balconies
slung under panes
of glass
in which