Alice Notley
[Like a scratchy record]
[Like a scratchy record]
Like a scratchy record—my documents are recorded on old equipment.
If there is nothing to do but enfold you in transparent plastic and watch
you breathe, you, baby, so I can get better, it's because it's all I was born for.
If none of the new words are true to you, the old ones each spread out,
into scratchy encirclings, she said to attack the center of the note, but the
note could be anywhere I implore.
The pattern ripped where we won't weave it so she walks here stalking the
role which she still wants to sing in no light but that inside the record. Isn't
that story all gone, itself
and you believed
she was a murderer, not a magician: as soldiers slip inside us and tell no
spell but unilingual chant along the blade
I am the scratchy spell
document not inside words but centers of notes to disappear through
black sequins. She's still alive
does she know it?
They want us to know what they said; they all want us to recognize them.
I only recognize baby breathing
each note. They want me to leave her the new Medea. They're afraid
because they don't know these words though words familiar as ghouls along
the shore sing I am beauty to the ghoul chant sister.
Accept this magic note.