Marjorie Welish

 

 
Epitaph
 
 

 

1


Pouvrette et ancienne
I don't know          may be oaths

Pouvrette et ancienne
I know

Pouvrette et ancienne
I know        dont know                doesnt apply


Low water pressure

 


Why would water

Why would enhancing pressure be lackluster

in parentheses

Why would there be less to the system

If tampering be not

 

 

2


Pouvrette et ancienne
I know            I don't know             other


Publics, whose
Nitrogen?        Estragon?


(Public knowledge does not depend on)
whether I myself know


Ramified litter

Never letter have I written
Never a letter have I written         may be oaths      an oath


What
is lost [anyhow] through evaporation       may be an oath


If no temptation      if no attempt
If no tampering or if non-tampering


Water is lost [anyhow] in the process
Of a life and of


Alias?     Nitrogen?        Never a letter have I written
Never a letter have I read, received


Never did I receive your
Public lettering


3


Here's the gauge      the gauge     you can hardly see,
hear, taste it. The gauge you can hardly taste.
Never did I receive your public lettering, graying. Graying
as a possible world. Graying as a possible world
will have been an oath. A gray scale shall have been
have written. A sampling-of a gray scale
might have been an oath at least.
The gradient shall have been recited.



Pouvrette et ancienne


I know don't know other


Pouvrette et non-white


Pouvrette et ancienne
I know       don't know         place of death
Pouvrette et place of birth
I know       address      don’t know       other


Place of birth may be an oath

 

 

4


I know shall have an oath

Of gray areas whether I myself know it

Which alias?   Of a time writing

Are gray areas where we do not know where to incise
Can hardly taste it

I don’t know     I never wrote grayness
Grayness is not an oath      is

A temptation     other     where gray areas where V-cuts

Would write        although a graying incision may write

A locus for indeterminacy

See hear taste it        counterclockwise

Taste

I don’t      like ascenders      I don’t know the ascenders of which

You speak

Have not yet recited space.

 


5


Littering.       Litter gravitates toward the spaced

Creases      the imbricated spacing yet it distributes differently

Think of epochs and historical formations

Of courtyards:      everything in its place       may be an oath.
A quarter turn?

Letters     traverse      a plastic spoon.


Unlettered      a new archive.

I know       I don't other

A quarter turn      imbricated

Whether I myself know it

Whether I might have known it      may know it      shall have.

The historical formation of litter

Of litter we have known:       think of epochs

Courtyards      everything.

Distraught V-cuts could be adjacent

To the system.      Cuts governing

Pouvrette et ancienne
I don't know      unlettered and low pressure

Make a heap       or may

Pouvrette et ancienne
I know       I don't know             doesn't apply

And cannot.        Cuts governing vague predicates
Cannot be incised

I know no precise dividing lines that can incise vague predicates

While others say:     may not precise dividing lines incise noise

Even if we do not know where.

Still others hold

That distracted V-cuts       nitrogen      and counterclockwise–yes?