The assignment was to fall in love. The details were up to you. The second part was to include in the poem certain words, words drawn from a specific text on another subject altogether. <<

Aus: Louise Glück: PRISM, in AVERNO.

Spring rain, then a night in summer. A man's voice, then a woman's voice.

You grew up, you were struck by lightning. When you opened your eyes, you were wired forever to your true love.

It only happened once. Then you were taken care of, your story was finished.

It happened once. Being struck was like being vaccinated; the rest of your life you were immune, you were warm and dry.

Unless the shock wasn't deep enough. Then you weren't vaccinated, you were addicted.

The assignment was to fall in love. The author was female. The ego had to be called the soul.

The action took place in the body. Stars represented everything else: dreams, the mind, etc.

The beloved was identified with the self in a narcisstic projection. The mind was a subplot. It went nattering on.

Time was experienced less as narrative than ritual. What was repeated had weight.

Certain endings were tragic, thus acceptable. Everything else was failure.

Deceit. Lies. Embellishments we call hypotheses -

There were too many roads, too many versions. There were too many roads, no one path -

And at the end?

List the implications of "crossroads."

Answer: a story that will have a moral.

Give a counter-example:

The self ended and the world began. They were of equal size, commensurate, one mirrored the other.

The riddle was: why couldn't we live in the mind.

The answer was: the barrier of the earth intervened.

The room was quite. That is, the room was quite, but the lovers were breathing.

In the same way, the night was dark. It was dark, but the stars shone.

The men in bed was one of several men to whom i gave my heart. The gift of the self, that is without limit. Without limit, though it recurs.

The room was quiet. It was an absolute, like the black night.

A night in summer. Sounds of a summer storm. The great plates invisibly shifting and changing-

And in the dark room, the lovers sleeping in each other's arms.

We are, each of us, the one who wakens first, who stirs first and sees, there in the first dawn, the stranger.