CARE

Dress like you care!

Eat like you care!

Care like you care!

You don't think

apples just grow on trees,

do you?

*

A fish taps a clam

against a bony knob

of coral

to crack its shell –

which demonstrates intelligence

yes, but

is the fish

pleased with itself?

*

Alone in your crib,

you form syllables.

Are you happy when one

is like another?

Add yourself

to yourself.

Now you have someone

Rae Armantrout has always taken pleasure in uncertainties and conundrums, the tricky nuances of language and feeling. In Conjure that pleasure is matched by dread; fascination meets fear as the poet considers the emergence of new life (twin granddaughters) into an increasingly toxic world: the Amazon smolders, children are caged or die crossing rivers and oceans, and weddings make convenient targets for drone strikes. These poems explore the restless border between self and non-self and ask us to look with new eyes at what we're doing.