Under the Sign by Ann Lauterbach

ENIGMA OF THE CAT
    1.
    She walked along. She looked out.
    Nothing here, among these, resembles.
    She went on. There were lists,
    objects, names, but still
    nothing resembling. The sky
    was a kind of sorrow, cold
    and stained a pale sunless gray,
    it too did not resemble. And she,
    her lies adrift over the humdrum,
    thought to turn back but by then
    as you already know was lost.
    2.
    The wrist’s illness, having
touched the spider,
    erupting as grid
sewn before and after the fact.
    The dark hall, the walls,
the imagined street
    where the forecast
elicits a halo
    broken from the entire—
cusp, turn, rim.
    3.
    Cat sleeps through world.
    4.
    Come then, undo the truss.
    Mayhem waits like a sting.
    Look down into the face puddle,
    look across into the alarm.
    There is a boat on a roof,
    an image of a boat
    on a roof. All else is heaved
    as if giving birth on a floor.
    Have you come this far?
    Will you pass the wet caul?
    5.
    Cat is spared from angel.
    6.
    Mute extravagance
    trapped under tarp.
    Wave good-bye or
    establish some rules
    despite the glare.
    Look down, there are things
    dumped into a pail of glue.
    This belt is way too tight.
    These buttons, coins,
    crumbs, a derelict parade
    awash, happy tramp drowned.
    7.
    Cat plays with dead bird.
    8.
    You cannot avoid
    the information.
    No one cares what you
    say unless you say
    the information.
    No one cares
    what you care about
    unless it is
    the information
    turned toward
    a vocabulary
    as if written.
    9.
    Cat turns in the chair and subsides.
    10.
    For what do you search?
    The quick being
    out of which
    the conceptual flares
    like a toy bomb.
    The medieval crescent
    born from prolific
    reason.
    Are you ready?
    After the after, please
    throw away
    the photographs.
    We know the image
    came to nothing.
    11.
    Cat at the threshold.
    12.
    To dream is
    to proliferate
    in the opening that is
    always shut. The long self
    drawn into patterns of shadow,
    girls and boys nameless
    across the playground.
    Stranded here
    in the partial real. Ground
    parts on
    lacerations of the newly good.
    The stone is mentioned.
    A law is invoked.
    The event floats in from afar.
    13.
    Cat waits until dark to go out.

TRIPTYCH (VAN EYCK)
    1.
    The woman
    with a child on her lap
sitting on rugs
    what is she doing
    there
in the middle
    the day
might always be cold
    March light
    what is she doing
sitting with a child
    on her lap
    long drapes
behind
    and rugs
like wings
    or feathers
feathery rugs
    alive in the cold
    March light
flat as the moon
    at dusk
    the cold
rakes
    blue plumes
    into
traversing
    signals
aside
    and because
it can never be
    early enough
she is always
    sitting
aside
    in wait.
    2.
    Mal, mal, trivial thwart.
    Stop this
glare, stop
    goading the ill
into consequence,
    the extra
bloom
    unheralded
by day or by night.
    Go off
into a woody scene
    and take
the painted epilogue
    with you.
Burn it for heat
    and burn the
currency of emeralds
    mistaken
for new life.
    3.
    If no time’s
not want
    stay and
renovate
    traced gloves
sweet digits
    adhesives
bound for dispatch
    and so cling
to the tiered ensemble
    stupendous enrichment
during the spell and
    start, start.
    for Stacy

UNTITLED (PORTRAIT)
    Up here in the ancient gold trim      the news not yet visual
    so that he or she or we are invisible to the naked eye
    whereas the gold trim on her gown is etched
    falling down along and over to the hem
    like an evening sky.
    Or like nothing yet announced
    so the missing and the present are singular in their dress
    as we await the address and the black
    river of reading aloud over the phone
    George Eliot’s intervention between the walls
    so that we walk through them as if turning a page
    we agreed again you and I as we have agreed before
    you are not going to be with me on the other side of the wall
    despite George Eliot and despite Daniel
    in his pink house with the book
    whose cover is reiterated on the wall
    the picture of the beautiful woman in black
    who had to decide whether to