Our Nature
The very flatness of portraits
makes for nostalgia
in the connoisseur.
Here’s the latest
little lip of wave
to flatten
and spread thin.
Let’s say
it shows our recklessness,
our fast gun,
our self-consciousness
which was really
our infatuation
with our own fame,
our escapes,
the easy way
we’d blend in
with the peasantry,
our loyalty
to our old gang
from among whom
it was our nature
to be singled out
Rae Armantrout
