Caroline CRUMPACKER








Recherche Theory


The superheroes falter  expectedly
and yet  people write about it.

The trope of the avenger, frayed as it is,
   is in vogue again ...

A woman's thighs  network news.

Cheryl, the secretary   hijacked.

Why do I want to    and how many ways can this idea be stolen
  before it is empty  and the young life
  unselfconscious  because unself
  is dissembled ravenously  ...

The woman with two cars    blocked in her yard ...

and a drug habit    dare you.

The similarities  are revolting
  as are the differences  and that woman  you don't know her
and your aesthetic  do(es)n't know her.

A  drunken flash that her  feelings are open to  poetic chicanery

  as   are the torturous snapshots  of why she feels.

  This library is rigged she   cries.


The newcomers  on their stoop  speaking secret tongues.

The parsimony of togetherness.   As verbal and social constraint.


Teetering there  on  exclusion.
Though excluding  is its own excision  of self.


When she says my heart is not broken  the momentum shifts
    for all of us:  in our greedy pockets of sentiment
    in our corrupted texts  out staggers
    the need for physical coherence ...

Being cared for   is an implication  that
    we don't live entirely on  the outer layer.

    (though no one would cradle her, though drunk on juniper, though medical
    bills annihilate, though the legal system spills out hot and white, though even
    health is incorporated)

She screams at the passing cars "You must be crazy!"  
 
 
 





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