Issue 7: Nathaniel Mackey
Beginning ‘We the Migrating They’
—andoumboulouous étude—
We the migrating they we
instigated, those in whose
name we went. To get where
they were going and lie
down
was all we wanted, love’s
choric voices convening,
caroling home, home ex-
ploded long since… It was
up and be gone again,
crab
shell taken for sun where
there was no sun, without
or about hope no one could
say…
We the migrating they we
stared out at, prodigal wish to
burn elsewhere intransigent,
Stella’s high skylight were
Stella
suddenly one of us, she the
one who said move on…
They were not the dead
but
dolls of the dead, a dream of
coming back as we were going.
Eyes wide but eyes nothing
looked
out from, effigies adrift in the
dark…
A parsed pomp and circumstance
it was, not being there but the
image of being there what they
were caught in, lagleg retreat,
emic
advance… Inside the bubble
the house became we saw each
awake one, puffed-up
ascendance all there was of
com-
ing back, an effigy of each if
not
each its own effigy, each an un-
likely remit… Everyone someone
we
knew, resemblance mocked us,
faces doll hard, clavicles crossed.
Each with a big mouth, telling on
everyone, what so-and-so did,
what
so-and-so thought… Who they
otherwise were we fell away from,
equate their going with our going
though we did… Who they were
they
otherwise were, the away what there
was
of it still
—andoumboulouous étude 2—
We the migrating they they
said come see, lean though
we did and look, sort of see,
night sky no less remote.
They
were the stars, we the stars’
understudies, night’s
love love’s lit recompense,
night’s far fetch a black
well
dipped into, horns’ bells
burrowing in… Would-
be recompense. Ythmic
largesse… Far fling as if all
touched other, we their
press
outward unimpelled…
They
the open sea and we the raft
I clung to, left leg scissored
by hers, we lay ensconced,
we
within the we they elicited,
ours newly raveling out…
Not to be attached we told our-
selves, ratchetless advance
we’d
come abreast of lip to inquis-
itive lip, tongue to ingenuous
tongue… Lift it otherwise was
no
matter, we drew back, we’s rum-
maging they let go. An exercise
in touch it turned out to be, we
their would-be stand-in, pre-,
post-,
pan-pronominal consort, to see
ourselves we set ourselves adrift…
Curve and declivity. Protuberant
hip…
Immanent ether. Astral dispatch…
They light’s arrival’s delay, we
their someday stand-in, ages we
took
to reach them, we the migrating
they…
That they were roots in the sky
moving's muse insisted… Star flux…
Far
star… Far fix
—andoumboulouous étude 3—
We the migrating they their
studies in touch. Stand to
their step, a studied pass, we
stood… Studies inasmuch
as
we were steps, we stood.
Studies, we ran in place…
Stood what they’d have called
pat,
we called ready, poised on a
brink we saw fall back…
Stood, we wanted to say,
what
chance there was were chance
in doubt, step stand’s re-
condite flicker, step stand’s
tonic
duress… ‘Blue Bossa’ came
in from a distance, a version no
one had yet heard. Step some
indigenous drift it turned
out, led to export stay, Stella’s
man-
date notwithstanding, end wanting
what would not be there… It
wasn’t music but a stepped ab-
scondity, a music before music’s
com-
promise. Stand resisted step, step
stand, moot martyrdom, stride’s
true marriage’s bossa, Itamar
and
Stella’s vow… A stepped incon-
sequence it might’ve been,
automatic étude, step’s new
nonchalance. They the migrat-
ing they the step we took, step
the
stand we took… Step, we wanted
to
say, stood in stay’s way. It was
the old and new school we were
enrolled in, syllabic devotion
recalling Baul, Bengali, qawwal…
Scat
academy grads though we were, we
bit our tongues, beat back say’s ex-
cess. They the migrating we were
automatic, step’s expected star
so
imminent a winding stairway it was
we were on… School of tangency,
glancing contact… Blasé stasis…
Pre-
tend impasse… Never not to’ve gone
but be going, a stepped incumbency…
Step’s evacuated finality. Finality’s
evac-
uated fit
—andoumboulouous étude 4—
We the migrating they trans-
lated. Draft meant drift meant
scheme meant sketch. We
the
migrating they were back
in school… Step’s incline
toward stride, we stood in-
structed, theirs the advance
we
were learning, rote’s auto-
mata, rail we were bound by
scraped as we verged outward,
we
the magnetic they they turned
out to be… Step fell away
the longer we lasted, collapsed or
contrived itself anew. There
was
a rail one stood at, stuck where
one stood, caught by Stella’s
backsides the way she went
forward, celestial mechanics,
cos-
mic rump… Itamar called it
astral, heavenly. Chant the names
of God we were told… Ita-
mar. Stella. Scrape, caress,
ca-
reen… Crab, sun, bell ad
infinitum… A worked incerti-
tude it seemed albeit abounding,
insist, “I do believe,” though
we
did. Scrape, caress, careen,
crab, sun were all names.
Bell another name, they went
on and on… Stride, bubble,
rum-
mage a rut we were caught
in, ran only running in place.
Rotating stations we worked
our
way loose from, effigy, skylight,
scat…
Ran as though pedaling, knees at
one's chin. Curve, doll, declivity.
Lip, leg, star. Name after name
sang change, rang changes, God’s
need
not to be still… String the names
as one we were told, one with-
out need of us though they were,
we
the migrating they again going,
raft, root, tangency, touch… A
studied sputter, spin, step taken
up…
Ratcheted, not yet ratchetless. Fix,
dip,
flicker. Brink, stair-
way, step
Nathaniel Mackey is the author of four books of poetry, the most recent of which is Splay Anthem (New Directions, 2006); an ongoing prose work, From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, whose fourth and most recent volume is Bass Cathedral (New Directions, 2008) and whose first three volumes have been published together as From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate: Volumes 1-3 (New Directions, 2010); and two books of criticism, the most recent of which is Paracritical Hinge: Essays, Talks, Notes, Interviews (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). A new book of poetry, Nod House, is forthcoming from New Directions in Fall 2011. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, and teaches at Duke University.
