Rae Armantrout

ECHOES

1.

In the parking garage I shout,
“Come here Rae’s car”
as if in fun. We know this works
only for Jim’s phone
in the commercial. Then I try
“Abandon all hope” because
I think you’ll like
the echoes.

2.

The homeless man living next door
under the viaduct,
among the concrete
orca fins of
the city art project
shouts a stream
of what sound like words
though we don’t catch
even one

RAE ARMANTROUT is the author of twelve books of poetry. Her collection, Versed (Wesleyan), won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and journals. Partly: New and Selected Poems is forthcoming from Wesleyan in the fall of 2016.