Swarm by Jorie Graham

An admirer once approached T. S. Eliot with a question about “Ash Wednesday,” perhaps his most obscure poem: “What did you mean when you wrote ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree’?” The poet replied: “I meant, ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree.’” This is the expected response, the only possible response. If poetry really is the best words in the best order, then no paraphrase or explication of a line can ever be as accurate as the line itself.
 
http://www.joriegraham.com/kirsch_2000


Summer, Underneath


Explain two are
Explain not one
(in theory) (and in practice)
blurry, my love, like a right quotation,
wanting so to sink back down,
you washing me in soil now, my shoulders dust, my rippling dust,
Look I’ll scrub the dirt listen.
Up here how will I
(not) hold you.
Where is the dirt packed in again around us between us obliterating difference
Must one leave off Explain edges
(tongue breaks) (thin fire)
(in eyes)
And bless. And blame.
(Moonless night.
Vase in the kitchen)

 Jorie Graham