No Help for That | Jackie Clark

It’s not so much that she ingests the whole compendium,
but that the pieces she is exposed to stay with her.

It is in passing that she notes this exchange.

What is this skein that sits on top of the world
but embankment, which holds the willing forcefully

to the turn. These pieces with their hard stops
make her feel ill, a body heat which cannot be made to quit.

The willing cannot account for these remains,
the ones which marry the idea of a queen bed

and a lone cat-call before the door is shut for the night.
It is this unwillingness to go on that the willing wonders

about. What extends across the river other than light
and the picture of scent and what it feels like to touch?

Somewhere knotted within these civilized systems
there exists an other with opposable thumbs

and an interest in stationary. A possible place—
something to settle this. Who is this accomplice, this idea?