Emphasis on Yes

Adam Weg

Some values are promoted “for rent.”
Others, not so much.
The look of the thing bothers us, in italics.
But perhaps you’ll find the language
less eh. We’ll keep with the local usage
and hold off on the unsourced idioms and coups
of doltish amazement. We’ll wear our human
overalls—some days, we’ll sound
a lot like mom. Just between us
we hope you’ll recognize a winner.
Luckily, we have the efficiency of English.

We take the long way of the imagination,
flare up, make
such promises to each other; they detail our
bare ceremony, the clockwork
of another body. You run your mouth
around me, your “pet theory”—a side fact
I share with you, like a child’s odor.
Why does showing our work
feel like begging? If we’re to imagine
means without ends, we’ll have
at least to discuss ends without means.
I’ll use the collective you, here, and export this
phrase into my talk of life, as I go around
making two of us. The double you—the fates
of our concepts are not
imprinted on experience, but breathe
slightly into the phone, making a wish...

A huge lip circulates among the crowd.
Then it is a real, huge lip,
a huge lip
physically like a star. You place your initials on it, next
the entire alphabet. I get the message. I even get
the messaging. My turn to disappear
inside a bottle.

I miss the imago for the affect. Yes, always, I miss the imago
for the affect. X marks the spotty.