CLAIRE DONATO


                                     



FUCK KNOWLEDGE: AN ACADEMIC LEXICON DISRUPTED BY A BODY




On Monday, my heart was an orifice for a stranger’s chasm
On Tuesday, I essayed my inability to project a sense of self
On Wednesday, I stood at the farmer’s market and touched
                                                                                             the sun. My finger stung
On Thursday, I defied visual representation:
                                                                                   STOP RECORDING ME;
                                                                         TAKE A PICTURE OF YOURSELF.
Now it is Friday and I am creating a public disturbance
The folding chairs in this room cost $18.88 multiplied by 32, my age
            + 4 = the age my mother was when I was born—
            how I’ve spent my life exorcising her depression!
The archive of books that surrounds is equivalent to a rural library, albeit
            less censorial
It is reflective of my deep belief that the unconscious is inscrutable
Alcohol was used as a tool of diplomacy by frontier whites to con
            native people into giving up their land. Today,
            white "drunk towns" near borders
            turn addiction into profit
Yet hope is not lost?
The window at your back faces a form of housing tenure, property
            administered by the government
            to provide subsidized assistance
            in the complicated and notorious history that is the United States
I am wearing stolen underwear, manufactured at a cost
            and extricated for a sum
Whose pelvic inlet’s lawless edges form
An academic lexicon disrupted by a body
Used alone or as a noun, that is what we’re here for






TYPO 30