Fixed Exchange Rate Regime
BY SARAH LAO
The forgetful Year has been long and subcutaneous.
The lobe of my bread sliced
into a slab of indifference.
Butter on the knife,
dabbed on the flat.
In Versailles, I thrift a wardrobe with limited self-control:
my white ermine fur coat,
ring set with mother of pearl.
Love in the mouth an octave. Alcove of velvet gloves.
The interval plays on the string.
The valence plays on the shell.
At age 19, I discover the birthmark behind my knee.
At which point in time, the orthography movement
moves to outlaw the silent k.
No knick knacks, knocks, or knobs on the door.
Only the dark, scandent vine of primogeniture.
If you asked, I could iron my longing
for the particular into its blue sheerness.
I condemn bed bugs to the heat death of the universe.
No one moves in to occupy the vacancy.
But the perfect tenant will loom large in the doorway.
Distracted cream churns in its container.
Your mother loses the dog on its walk, leash
trailing behind.
The supply of currency is out of my hands.
Everything I pull comes
out in tufts.
The First Analogy
BY SARAH LAO
The world persists when nothing in it does.
Light perforates the mind in stanzas,
whatever synaptic tic swept
away by the looming broom.
At least it’s not payday.
Midway through what
inoculates the graying hair.
I suspect redundancy is possible
only with rhyme
sewn as the hem of distress.
Snow on the hedges,
draped reticent as ever.
Perhaps it’s true I should correct
my catastrophic thinking—
but already, in some novella,
the dog has strayed off
its second page. How unfair
it is to pass through a life
as if it were a sieve.
Characters are diffuse, particulate
by choice. And this is the Capitol
of my soviet sensations: green
felt hammer descending
as a guillotine at the other end
of a piano’s pedal.
I could withhold feeling.
I could slip free of my Creditor
and move on. What worries the edge
is not a fear of the interior
but knowledge of its own dispensability.
Not much one can do to distinguish
between a thing and a thing.
The idea transforms to concept
before finally settling down
as fiction. Linen sheets billowing,
then tucked neat into four corners.
White lacuna. The table set and unset.
Oh, I’ll get away from the petitions
for a new faith. I’ll get away
with the demands of my one selfish life.
