DOWN
SARAH DOWLING
Coach House Books // Toronto, Ontario
copyright © Sarah Dowling, 2014
first edition
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Dowling, Sarah, 1982-, author
Down / Sarah Dowling.
Poems.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55245-298-1. (pbk).
ISBN 978 1 77056 395 7. (ebk).
I. Title.
PS8607.O9875D69 2014 C811'.6 C2014-904550-6
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For Jesse, for making me feel this way
Everybody looks alike
and acts alike,
and we’re getting more
and more that way.
I’VE GOT TO TELL YOU
I’m talking Cause I really
can’t tell me are you grey
Say Cause I really Tell me
I’m not
If I can’t tell I hope I’m talking
listen Cause I really need Tell me are you
really Tell me are you lonely
I’m not And Is it wet, Is it Cause
If I If I
can’t tell you’re real I hope that we’ll Oh
Boy see I shouldn’t let you but
Won’t you If you tell you know
Cause I really Tell me are
you that somebody Cause I’m
not but just Say yes You
can’t tell me Are you
talking you shouldn’t but if I
if I let you go We talk
But don’t know see if I promise you then
Can you
SUNSHINE HONEY
I’ve got yes. I’ve got this. I’ve got anxious. I’ve got
serenity. I’ve got our existence. Of course disarray never
included us. I’ve got sunshine. I’ve got an occupying
attention. I may refer to, must inherently. I’ve got any. I’ve
got any compulsive relationship, Sunshine.
Sunshine on a cloudy day, on a method. On expressed or
implied. Not a thing or a person. On a cloudy day it will
never be morning. On it. Cloudy in the way that we do
this. Cloudy day talking, better for us. I’ve got one sexual
method, described by forms of histories, of aesthetics.
When made present. When it’s by the explicit. When it’s
cold, that relentless energy outside their excesses of sex.
Outside their lives. It’s cold outside and when it’s linked.
When it’s the trembling cold outside the world.
I’ve got the month. I may by relentless excesses present
the explicit. I’ve got their lives of us. The month of method
and talking. The month of this it. Of course their energy
would. The month it were day. I must refer. I’ve got disarray.
May inherently. I’ve got the month to do a thing described.
I guess, or person. I guess sex. I guess an expressed or
implied relationship. You’d say very compulsive. I guess
histories. I guess any form of sexless method. You’d say
not occupying I guess attention. You’d say that never
included us.
What could make this aesthetics. What could make me feel
that. Make me many. Make me better. What could make me
sexless and sexual. Make me feel we. Make me feel made.
Make me feel us. Make me feel matter. Make me feel this,
for one. What could make me feel this commotion, this
relationship to energy. What could make me feel this way.
I’ve got so much occupying. I’ve got a thing or person. I’ve
got so much inherently. Not histories, never expressed or
implied. I’ve got relentless. Honey, in the way. So much
that an attention to forms. I’ve got so much disarray. I’ve
got so much talking. I’ve got so much excesses. Honey
included many of us. Honey, of course I’ve got that. I’ve
got compulsive, got so much sexual.
The bees envy us. The bees of any sex. The bees of any
means. The bees of any method. One made a matter of their
lives. May, for us and for envy. Method and present. We do
this better. The bees, sexless. It was Monday night. The
bees, aesthetics, me.
I’ve got described. I’ve got the explicit. I’ve got the same
state of trepidation. A sweeter song might be suffering,
described by their energy. I’ve got a relationship. A sweeter
song must refer, occupying anything. A sweeter person or
sex, inherently that us. Sweeter, it pleases me. I’ve got all
the forms of not.
Sweeter than the histories, than this relentless sexual
aesthetics. Than never. The birds included to matter. The
birds, a one, many of us. Expressed or implied excesses.
The birds talking. The way that an attention may present the
trees by disarray. In the trees, any method, the birds. In the
trees, we do.
Well, I guess very compulsive. I guess for us. Well, I guess
and for their explicit lives. I guess the