ANNIE LOU MARTIN

Attention is a Way of Loving

I.

I don’t believe utopia 
is any more stable than muse.
If I can’t have stability 
I would like to have beauty,
that thinning that turns 
the vignette pink. 
Utopia’s detritus: 
plant clippings, a full set 
of knives, fresh ground coffee, 
clean needles, a toothbrush 
unmissed, the lover’s copy
now used to scrub the tile cracks.
Attention, taken to its highest degree,
is the same thing as prayer. 
It presupposes faith and love. 
I’m showing you what I’ve made because I want 
to be closer to you, because how I see says 
something about who I am. But that’s not quite right. 
Courtney says a poem is like a birdhouse.
I think your movie’s like a poem. 

II.

Looking is a way of loving.
Love makes me want to turn out my pockets.
I can’t imagine anything less than sharing 
every dream as it comes to me. Last night,
two men, one famous, in a cabin on ranch property.
My father knocks on the door, the shadow
of a cowboy hat. I pull out, 
say, pretend you’re my gay professors!
And when I wake up the light is orange, 
sex still as banal and central as it’s ever been. 

III.

Thought is a vector of attention, and every pattern is imposed. 
But there are signs that endure, like a toothbrush or a party.
I like parties because they’re domestic, with certain effects dialed up;
the potential of anonymity, a so-called public. You look
because you want to be looked at. I’m looking at you.
You’re a Pisces. Your fish skin gleams when you flip.
Strobe light, tea kettle. You seek a wet archive. 

IV.

I told you I like poetry because it feels like cinema,
a birdhouse built from crystal and gelatin emulsion.
The muse liberates energy by requiring full attention.
There is an “I” that functions on its knees.
Roost; I know I can be fed on light alone. 
I don’t need specificity or anonymity.
If this is a gift it’s vacant and proud, the reflection 
of a glass of water in a smudged table. 

V.

Sometimes, in my dreams, I hold the camera. 
I watch people I’ve brushed against and forgotten. 
They embrace and turn each other around. 
It rarely comes to sex. Of course, in my dreams
they’re all me, and in my dreams I’m nobody at all.

Annie Lou Martin is a poet. They read and write in Brooklyn, NY.