In the Orchard

We began our alternative Poetry in Motion series with Eileen Myles' "Truth." We close it, some eighty days later, with another truth, Denise Levertov's, "O Taste and See."

The world is
not with us enough.
O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination's tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

As subway posters become more and more standardized and corporate--an entire train's worth of American Express U.S. Open ads--it becomes harder and harder to find any inspiration there. Yet somebody did with the Jet Blue poster on the 82nd St. platform.

Tomorrow: "The Line-Up"!