KIMBERLY GREY

System of Rhetoric


If language formed a center. If the center were true
and tugging. If the tugging kinged us and we were 
            fully assembled. 
If we were translated into compasses and the wind
spun us around. If the ground imagined 
            us raveled.
If we strung milkweed around our shoulders
and walked north. If we found a little house 
            and labeled it covet. 
If it were contemptible to be personal and diamondly 
lit. If we bathed. If the neighbors 
            watched us bathe. 
If we knew our way around a waist and an equation. 
If dirty were a symptom of wonder. If we were 
            dirty with wonder. 
If we slapped a tender star and remembered our god. 
If remembering is always suffering. If there were a term     
             for suffering in thought. 
If thought were radioactive and red. If we wandered 
through a gallery of horsetails. If we thought it was 
            modern architecture. 
If the mechanics of thought were the mechanics of 
architecture. If we could build thinking with a chisel 
            and hair.
If we are scared to let go of our hotness. If hotness is 
a menial term. If hotness had anything to do 
            with the equation. 
If our bodies were a hundred lying birds. If our bodies 
were disassembled. If we are failing and failing is     
             gathered in the mind. 
If we mind failing. If we leap from place to place 
and never arrive at it. If we are unkinged. If we suffered
            for language and a little house. 
If truth is contemptible and wonder is a symptom
of god. If we could build god with a compass 
            and bath.
If our neighbors watch and wonder. If language
equals failure and failure is the end. If we disassemble     
            the center.
If we wander back to where we arrived. If the ground is
a gallery of horsetails. If we bury our failures 
            in the ground.
If we wait for them to bloom. If a horse comes
and pisses on them and we are 
            happy still.



84     The Paris-American

Kimberly Grey is a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. Her work has appeared or will appear in Tin House, A Public Space, Gulf Coast, The Southern Review, Boston Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. 
(www.kimberlyMgrey.com)

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   Next week's poet:

 Yusef Komunyakaa