“Make me up,” says Nothing:
It has a certain Shape in mind²
Look how our hand Revises your form³
Oh, we say: this is going to be—and it is⁴
You, here—quickened by the breath of Names⁵
We face the unpredictable Compound that forms
Mysteriously from the elements of our lips⁶
Let us be the shape
And echo of our Word⁷
We accrue what we Hear unto ourselves
And let Sounds contribute toward us⁸
See with our eyes Accomplished
That which our lips have Spoken⁹
One lives one’s life in the Word¹⁰
¹ Paul Tran, Incident Report
² Rae Armantrout, Incorporation
³ Claire Schwartz, Where I Eat
⁴ Mary Ruefle, Genesis
⁵ Paul Celan tr. Pierre Joris, Slate-Eyed One
⁶ F. Scott Fitzgerald, Winter Dreams
⁷ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
⁸ Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
⁹ The Epic of Gilgamesh tr. N.K. Sandars
¹⁰ Charles Wright, Lost Language