Closed Systems
She says she feels as if she’s living
In an unused world. Awake from the ripe
World is this new world. Says she
Expects to bounce on tethers of a
Nexus. A luminous nevertheless in
Memory of what still lies in the worn
World. How the day she says doesn’t
Feel like the day of what’s inscribed on
A plate of glass in her pocket etched with
Function of province of what’s lack and
Having taken things too far. Forgive me
She says. For this fray and pretending.
For I am like the living of what’s used
In a world of fetish and memory and
Oh my how the system is, she says
Closed in a pocket so evenly matched
With the shape of my hand. She suspends
Disbelief. Makes a good best guess for how
Her mouth is not her own after the lustrous.
After the everything and the suspected.
Still, if you believe, she says, how a world
How the collision of two worlds and not
More than that—Well perhaps if I’m being
Honest, she says, then they are endless. This
Waking. This living on tethers stretched.
There are more worlds from which to wake
More hours in a full grown day. All
Which close themselves. She says close
And here she is suspended by a system
Of elasticity—of an array of dazzling Oh-my’s.
Jessica Rigney is a poet, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to her voice & see moving pictures here. She is twice a quarter-finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry (2016 & 18.) Sample her poetry at Salomé and Cider Press Review. She is poetjess on Instagram.
Amethyst Review 