Lisa Robertson

 How does it work?

Listening to Tom Jones on LP and reading Carlyle?
Why didn’t I say emotion?
Why didn’t I say documents?
I used the language of a baroque politics.
That was a real lie.

Waking up in cabins in 1979
Is the polder of happiness like that?
the long slash of pure gold
opening up behind the utility shed
shabby and powerless
the low lichen
the deep fog –
How does it work?

That other time we called our theory Toxins
we became adepts of its excellence
we thought our city would be a place
but it is a leak
and I will feel shame
mortal shame that I am not a tree.
How can I make time out of toxins?