Veil

By Rae Armantrout
The doll told me   
to exist.

It said, “Hypnotize yourself.”

It said time would be   
transfixed.

                     *

Now the optimist

sees an oak   
shiver

and a girl whiz by   
on a bicycle

with a sense of pleasurable   
suspense.

She budgets herself   
with leafy

prestidigitation.

I too
am a segmentalist.

                     *

But I’ve dropped   
more than an armful

of groceries or books

downstairs
into a train station.

An acquaintance says   
she colors her hair

so people will help her   
when this happens.

To refute her argument,   
I must wake up

and remember my hair’s   
already dyed.

                     *

As a mentalist,   
I must suffer

lapses

then repeat myself   
in a blind trial.

I must write   
punchlines only I   
can hear

and only after   
I’ve passed on

Copyright Credit: Rae Armantrout, “Veil” from Veil: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2001 by Rae Armantrout. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Source: Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)