three poems

Norma Cole

Take a look

Take history
Take power

At no point sufficient
Accident of memory

The common truth
Conditions of visibility

Unstable orbits
Explain nothing

In the history
Of contestation

Truth cure—it’s a start
Unfit for use

Nescio, not knowing
Task or matter

Insufficient uncertainties
Pose limits of understanding

The commission
Memory itself

Night Market

Rock or tree, inflexion
of tree, wild asparagus

and watercress, weeping
and leaving, parting and

fleeing, atmosphere
as always the distance

when the sun was still
shining, scattering

ardor, a metal form
straight as a cypress

useful and unnecessary
single or double, green

or variegated, sensation
recording upheaval, desertion

or deception to protect
a love, lore on a tablet

the song a minimal grammar,
walls, bridges, cement could

take the weight, lamentations
a fire, the easy kill in the night

See the light

not the means

like a

small wave

in motion

you can’t see

when you

look

peculiar

energy behaviors

revolution without

traits

without

the past

ground into dust

contradictory

resolutions

present

together (superposition)

see the inference

looks like a

proposition

makes sense

will make

a case of

interference

as of yet

inhabiting

not

gesturing

limits

of nostalgia

extended dissolves

like writing

on the wall

little mother fucker