These poems are conceived as a value-neutral Paradise Lost. In other words, someone who is not god tells you to avoid a certain tree, and you disobey the instruction; the result is shame. Two characters agree that one of them is supposed to worship and obey the other without actually believing that the other possesses any special qualities that would enforce obedience; the first one disobeys the second one and has to be punished. A body has five parts; each part is alarmed. Descriptions of the parts set off the alarms. Affect lives in the face and is measured with a ruler. The measure is a five-syllable line arranged in three-line units. Each poem is mirrored by another poem with the same title.
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From the Book:
the t.v. has a
human face (th face
has two memories)
in the shade of low
branches or human
furniture under
the smothering tree
the damaged women
(enter together)
and some of them heard
(pretended not to
hear) your suffering
tree's facial nightlight
ripening human
(yes) fruits behind the
eyes tree looked thicker
reflected in your hair ah in the shape-
less mask of your hair
your additional
hair your living hair
asrin
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AARON KUNIN grew up in Minneapolis, was educated at Brown, Johns Hopkins, and Duke, and currently lives in Connecticut, where he is a visiting assistant professor of 18th-century English literature at Wesleyan University. His work has appeared in Boston Review, Fence, The Germ, No: A Journal of The Arts, The Poetry Project Newsletter, The Poker, and elsewhere.
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