I Eat Poetry

I Love Artists

by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge


1

I go to her house and talk with her as she draws me or knits, so it's not one-on-one exactly, blue tattooed 
stars on her feet.

I pull the knitted garment over my head to my ankles.

Even if a detail resists all significance or function, it's not useless, precisely.

I describe what could happen, what a person probably or possibly does in a situation.

Nothing prevents what happens from according with what's probable, necessary.

A chance occurrence is remarkable, when it appears to happen by design.


2

Telling was engendered in my body and fell upon me, like a battle skimming across combatants, a bird 
hovering.

Beautiful friends stopped dressing; there was war.

I'd weep, then suddenly feel joy and sing loud words from another language, not knowing my song's end.

I saw through an event and its light shone through me.

Before, indifference was: black nothingness, that indeterminate animal in which everything is dissolved; 
and white nothingness, calm surface of floating, unconnected determinations.

Imagine something, which distinguishes itself, yet that from which it distinguishes does not distinguish 
itself from it.

Lightning distinguishes itself from black sky, but trails behind, as if distinguishing itself from what 
espouses it.

When ground rises to the surface, her form decomposes in this mirror in which determination and the 
indeterminate combine.

Did you know, finally, there was not communication between her and myself?

Communication was in time and space that were coming anyway.

I may suffer if I can't tell the agony of a poisoned rat, as if I were biting.


3

Bruce leaving for the night makes space for his cat to enter.

Mouse (left) exits door and returns.

Moth and mouse on sculpture (left), noise.

It's an exterior relation, like a conducting wire, light fragment by fragment.

I realized my seeing is influenced by him, for example, when we change form and become light reaching 
into corners of the room.

Even now, we're slipping into shadows of possessions that day by day absorb our energy.

I left my camera on to map unfinished work with shimmering paths of my cat (now disappeared), mice 
and moths (now dead).

There's space in a cat walking across the room, like pages in a flip-book.

The gaps create a reservoir in which I diffuse my embarrassment at emotion for animals.

I posted frames each week, then packed them into suitcases, the white cat and her shadow, a black cat.

I named her Watteau, who imbues with the transitory friendship we saw as enduring space in a forest.


4

The level of meaning can be the same as a place.

Then you move to your destination or person along that plane.

Arriving doesn't occur from one point to the next.

It's the difference in potential, a throw of dice, which necessarily wins, since charm as of her handcrafted 
gift affirms chance.

I laugh when things coming together by chance seem planned.

You move to abandon time brackets, water you slip into, what could bring a sliding sound of the 
perimeter of a stone?

You retain "early" and "walking" as him in space.

When a man becomes an animal, with no resemblance between them, it feels tender.

When a story is disrupted by analyzing too much, elements can be used by a witch's need for disharmony.

My advice to you is, don't get lost too deep in need, unless you are going to join the witches.

Creation is endless.

Your need would be as if you were a white animal pulling yourself into a tree in winter, and your tears 
draw a line on the snow.


FROM I LOVE ARTISTS: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS BY MEI-MEI BERSSENBRUGGE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, BERKELEY, CA, 2006.