With No One to Say ‘Fill ‘Er Up’ To

By Jorge Guitart

Your self at the self station

alone with psyche, your soul

who goes on a nuptial flight

and marries the starry night

You prayed for a violation

of one or more laws of causation.

Your case is encased in the case

encased in your head, which hardens with pleasures

then softens after the many erasures

and then there is nothing to face.

JORGE GUITART will join poets Gail Fischer and John Marvin in this month’s Just Buffalo Literary Café at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Road, Amherst. He is professor of Spanish Linguistics in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University at Buffalo. This poem is from his most recent collection, “The Empress of Frozen Custard and 99 Other Poems” (BlazeVOX Books, 2009).