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The Green Tuxedo » "Against the Literal”

Against the Literal

Of course each shrub and rodent has a name, sometimes more than one,

and every weed and every flower and all the sonorous trees,

and the winds too, their mistrals and sciroccos and easts and wests,

but I am telling you to keep them from me a moment: if the gray jay

and the pinyon jay are the same, I don't need to know yet,

and I most want to be rid of Latin binomials. We are entering

new country. If I see the same squirrel five times, must I know

there is one peripatetic, curious little animal, or may I believe

the woods are teeming with squirrels? The sun is brighter

here than anywhere else: I don't care if the altitude provides a logical

explanation; it's brighter just now for other reasons. Observe:

the flowers here have more seductive fragrances. If I were to think

your voice carries especially far because I always hear it,

or that the camp robber takes bread from my hand for reasons other

than greed, would it trouble you not to disabuse me? I'm not saying

forever. Long enough. A moment.

Copyright © Janet Holmes 1994.
Originally published in The Georgia Review,
and reprinted in The Best American Poetry 1995,
edited by Richard Howard and David Lehman.

The Green Tuxedo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1998.
ISBN 0-268-01036-6. $12.00 paperback. 72 pages.
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