5.153 A proposition is in itself neither probable nor improbable. An event occurs or does not occur, there is no middle course.
There are two points, drawn with chalk.
They are only one dimension:
A thumb presses white into asphalt gray, the print
is a trail, marking events and inclination.
A line runs between them: it is two dimensions
but is not short: it meanders, shivers in time.
Watching eyes shutter shut, and the sun contracts
into pupils, black uncovering blue irises.
A radiation of lilies scatters across the ground,
scented and impossible. The improbable fans out,
is candescent. Tongues lick the sky, sizzle
with words and words: Stay! they say. Stay.
6.371 At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.
An equation lies in the fusion of our hands –
one to one but not, as written, a tautology.
We separate: remain one and/or one. Why
is the Earth not a dead rock floating in space?
I turn over your hand, expose the damp palm.
Here the future’s traffic collides. Lines sprout
at the junction of Jupiter and Saturn, transgress
the Mount of Venus. Suns circle Apollo,
splash down where my cheek would nestle,
mouth against your wrist. Futures are not
predictable. Unbend each finger, the spine,
the breath. Fill sails and hustle home.
Jaime Robles’ latest book of poetry, Hoard, was published by Shearsman Books in January 2013. Shearsman also published her Anime Animus Anima(2010), a poetic study of the body and soul as animistic machine. A visual artist as well as a writer, she has produced many of her texts as artist books, including Loup d’Oulipo (Woodland Editions, 2002) and Letters from Overseas (Woodland Editions, 2010), and her books are in collections at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; the Beinecke Library, Yale University; and the Oulipo Archive in Paris, among others. She holds a doctorate in Creative Writing from the University of Exeter, UK, and works as a reviewer of opera, dance, theater and poetry.