ETHAN PAQUIN & MATT HART
Dear Motherwell
Decision and action is what art is all about. Today
Ears are turning inside out, singing their hearts in so many
Aleatoric gestures I can’t stand myself. I wonder if you’d have
any
Reason to disagree if you could, but no matter. I say
Moths have eaten funny shaped holes in all my sweaters
Or o the sparks are flying nightly, and in all of this I want only to connect
To you in the ever-life where there will be a constant and direct
Heaven pressed against us, not the slightest bit phony. In all your letters,
Even the faithless ones, you talk about faith like an actual thing.
Remember also feeling, you say, and the power of belief—
Whether or not you believe in it is beside the point. There is no strife
Enclosed here, no ulterior motives, no bingo. Floor to ceiling
Leafening, the deafening’s mark. Every dumb sonnet I write is a love
Letter to you or someone like you, shattered-up lately in the grove.
+++
Sedentary
From my end-chair, I had drunk all the wintery mix
I could possibly stomach. I had studied Jesu’s Helix –
the World’s Most Popular Constellation, so sayeth
a Reuters poll – and watched every bough swayeth,
because I’m a person who likes to study things. Hey,
check this out: because I’m a person who likes, nay,
LOVES, to study things, I stared at my armpit hair
all day long. Outside, snowbanks growing browner
by the minute, you stopped to point and laugh at me.
I liked the way your lips crinkled, the tiny way some
of your forehead-embedded wrinkles like, chastised
me for being so intelligent, so observant. Paradised
in my living room chair, all you’ve got is the snow
and reproach. Go get a degree in seeing. Dude, go.