A SINGLE STEP IN NATURAL DESCENT

(after Till Other Voices Wake Us by George Oppen)

Anne Gorrick

 
Anne Gorrick / Untitled, 2018 / Encaustic monotype, rust and graphite / 20 x 26 in.

Anne Gorrick / Untitled, 2018 / Encaustic monotype, rust and graphite / 20 x 26 in.


and then to alleviate the sorrow, misery of etc
and the distance covered by a flying object

A number of beings or things fly or pass through the air together

The origin of memory, a new urgency
The capability of the immune system
to produce a specific secondary response to an antigen it has previously encountered
Of the origin of adolescence, onset, noun of state
An exclamation of mild surprise or dismay
a precursor, prototype, or early form
presumably from baby-speak

Indicate inclusion within space, a place, or limits
Indicate inclusion within something abstract or immaterial
Fleurs-de-lis or upon azure
in place of I in formal speech
We stand on end; bristle

As in time, on a scale, or in order
an object, as a stone shaft, set in the ground to mark boundaries
in a manner (directed, agreed, promised, etc) variant

To press, crush, or injure something
(often with mild condescension or sarcasm)
(of a male bird) to copulate
to perform by walking or dancing

A special form or variety of this liquid, as rain
full of or abounding in
stones or rock (a stony beach)
without expression, especially as dependent on tide
Indicate derivation
any enduring evidence or notable example of something
plus
very or extremely
We bring the lower layers of (sod, soil, etc) to the surface, as in plowing
Hectic, slapdash, in this abandoned home

So we remain supported by or suspended from
are, hour, our
the track, ground, water on which a race is run, sailed
Let’s appear before an audience
See me
(used to express possibility):
(used to express advisability):
(used in polite requests for permission):
as a process of inorganic accretion

To have one's appreciation exhausted repeatedly:
to die under water or other liquid of suffocation
to kill by submerging under water or other liquid
to slake (lime) by covering with water and letting stand
To cut, write, German reissen to tear, draw, Old Norse rīta to score, write
To scratch runes into bark

An informal, simplified spelling
has a specifying or particularizing effect

We are nightlessly garmenting

I am something having the shape of an A
I am "young animals collectively, offspring" a rabbit
while they accustom (a hawk) to the human presence
which probably is distantly related
to a cardinal number, ten plus nine
Informal: a twenty-dollar bill

The muses dress smartly
their nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistols
an act of making or becoming unlike

This ninth letter
in honor or abuse
a symbol or vehicle of divinity
the indefinite or generalizing force
a thick block or crystal of mica in pages
bookless

A succession of coordinate sentence elements
used during part of a geological epoch
an end-to-end arrangement of pearls
pragmatic, secondhand
a stratigraphical unit
For example: 2 + 2 2+ 2 3+ 2 4+ 2 5+ ...

All the cake; all the way; all year

To stop abruptly, bound back, or roll off to one side after hitting an object
A communal occasion where one does what is indicated
something happens, often by surprise
Indiana, indium
We note ourselves separately
in all innumerable phases, aspects
the effect of light falling on us, as an object

The lungs, especially of sheep, pigs etc.
pale, whitish, or not deep or dark in color
Turn or switch on (an electric light)
to have in one's grasp or one's control, but not necessarily as one's own
to investigate; consider:
something having the shape of a U
an impersonal subject
(in children's games) the player whose turn it is to try to touch another
in order to describe, identify, or amplify
One typically resembles the cry of dogs

This is extremely difficult to count
governing an unexpressed
arrangement of drawers or pigeonholes for keeping valuables
any cunning contrivance, treachery
in this glacial drift

I'd like to live in some other city
The TV show follows the lives of people who are married, single, or other
A normal loss: the sound or sounds uttered through the mouth of living creatures
the resonant effect of the tongue and the mouth
to become roused from a tranquil or inactive state
We are the tracks of waves left by a ship or other object moving through the water
the tincture, or metal, gold: represented either by gold or by yellow

We are copulative verbs
drowning in (m)ink
irrevocably
covered with or enveloped in


Anne Gorrick is a writer and visual artist.  

She is the author of six books of poetry including most recently: An Absence So Great and Spontaneous it is Evidence of Light (The Operating System, 2018) and The Olfactions: Poems on Perfume (BlazeVOX Books, 2017). She co-edited, with poet Sam Truitt, In|Filtration: An Anthology of Innovative Writing from the Hudson River Valley (Station Hill Press, 2016).  

She lives in West Park, New York.