15th & G
tried to lose my mind but the grid stayed
the same / maybe a car hit me / maybe
I was struck / dumb / maybe my hair blew
in the alley wind the way you’d like / all
swept up in the fucking now / O I ran
like a deer & you took one good look &
soft jogged away / I yelled & you took
my yell / you took my hands / you left
the numb outline of your print / you
don’t have eyes / you never did /
you were a voice / you were a sound /
an empty imagined train / can you see
this mountain with your mouth / can
you let me know it’s there / & my
mind rusting over back to normal /
what does that sound like / tell me / tell
me in numbers / tell me in notes
| Alyse Knorr |
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levelheaded: 15th & G
This poem does something pretty cool with time. At first it’s not clear if events of the poem are happening simultaneously in real time. Sure, the poem is in past tense (it’s tough to overlook that), but there’s a kind of immediacy to the poem’s jumpiness. Its slashes, for instance, might indicate the way our different glances capture the world separately before they coalesce into experience. The speaker emphasizes “the fucking now,” verifying the importance of the present. She repeats “maybe,” giving the poem its spongy foundation. So what’s cool about this? Well, for all its vivid presence, for all its apparent attention to the “fucking now,” the poem is mainly about the perpetual fade of the present moment into oblivion.
We don’t know much about what’s going on here. There’s some kind of noteworthy event followed by an “I” and “you” communicating across an increasing metaphorical (or literal?) distance. But the details are beside the point. Or by being beside the point, they are the point. The poem’s key line comes near the end: “& my | mind rusting over back to normal.” In this moment, we become aware that the speaker is aware that she is looking backward through the “rust” of her memory. What at first seem like the juke-steps of her senses grappling with a present moment are actually desperate grasps toward the past – so desperate they end with her plea to “tell me / tell | me in numbers / tell me in notes.”
Let’s go back to what we called the key line. What’s even more interesting about the mind’s “rust” is the speaker’s assertion that it’s normal. Forgetting is normal. Losing life’s important moments is normal. Every glance at lover or a child or a friend is potentially earth-shattering, but most of them disappear forever – and this is normal. There’s a hint at this idea at the very beginning. When she starts with “tried to lose my mind,” the speaker’s already toying with the idea that her memory operates outside her control. When a voice becomes a sound or a hand becomes a “numb outline,” it’s not because the speaker wants them to, or if she does, it’s not as though she can forget with purpose. But this poem exists as a protest against our natural tendency to forget. It’s fighting a losing battle, but it’s worth a try.
-The Editors
