Definitely
What is desire
But the hard wire argument given
To the mind’s unstoppable mouth.
Inside the braincase, it’s I
Want that fills every blank. And then the hand
Reaches for the pleasure
The plastic snake offers. Someone says, Yes,
It will all be fine in some future soon.
Definitely. I’ve conjured a body
In the chair before me. Be yourself, I tell it.
Here memory makes you
Unchangeable: that shirt, those summer pants.
That beautiful face.
That tragic beautiful mind.
That mind’s ravenous mouth
That told you, This isn’t poison
At all but just what the machine needs. And then,
The mouth closes on its hunger.
The heart stops.
–Mary Jo Bang
Bang has published a number of volumes of poems including Elegy, The Eye Like a Strange Balloon, The Downstream Extremity of the Isle of the Swans, and Louise In Love. Her first book, Apology for Want was chosen by Edward Hirsch for the 1996 Bakeless Prize. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.