Michael Puican’s “The Man Was Either Discussing Death…”

A new poem by alumnus Michael Puican (poetry, ’09) appears online at Prick of the Spindle:

The Man Was Either Discussing Death…
after Anne Carson

The man was either discussing death or he was not.

If he was discussing death, the listener was either visibly moved or was unaffected.

If she was unaffected, either the words were not understood or she was not in church at the time.

If she was not in church, she either went to an earlier Mass or she lied about going to church.

If she went to an earlier Mass, either she told the priest how much she enjoyed the sermon or was distracted from the sermon because there were too many valves open in her heart.

If she was distracted from the sermon because there were too many valves open in her heart, it was brought on either by sunlight streaming through the stained glass or the limits of form.

If it was the limits of form, the natural world was enjoying a moment of strength. Either that or she had been thinking of the uncertainty between skin and what’s recalled as touch.
Or maybe it wasn’t skin and touch at all.  Maybe it was the black of a closed mouth or an open one caught in a voiceless cry and set against the pattern, the pattern of no longer returned human love.