From: Joan

Joan of Arc is a funny pathos 

Joan of Arc carries many pigeons in her breast 

Joan of Arc will fellate, as we do, tractable, always 

and according to her own 

suffering, her own yielding, her own

father’s body she found once in the marrow

Stuffed with straw 

Diseased as morning 

She pointed to a photograph of the Latin language 

and said, this is shady

She wanted to moisturize it, but couldn’t 

She wanted to textbook it, but couldn’t 

She wanted to suckle it, but couldn’t 

She wanted to sublime it, but couldn’t 

I too have been enjambed by many men 

I know exactly what it smells like 

×

On the third or fourth day of the seventh or ninth year

Joan of Arc straightened her trousers and asked 

If language is a mechanics, then what are the mechanics of language?

Joan was not deaf

Joan had hands and feet

Which some might say, looked like a choice ill-matched to her voice

And her face 

Falling upwards from the crowd 

Men in the crowd wishing she were only slightly 

Less fraternal

Less transcribable

Less vernacular

Less of a digression

Less archaeological

Less half-animal

Less never sounded

Less its consequence 

Less auditorily smooth 

Less than a spree 

Less bridled 

Less against gravity

Less than the shape of a young woman’s thighs

Less to penetrate

Sound penetrates the body through the ears 

This is what we sometimes refer to as fucking

×

Or sighing 

Joan never sighed

She suffered equally, the man who floats face down the Seine 

And from what man, nuzzling, yet fragile 

Maybe this is fantasy

To withdraw from all signs 

To live for twelve years on nothing but cold 

rabbit and pears. She knew how to 

think a sentence, but golden. Never remembered to drink water, but 

loved a good and fertile flicker by the window, the sound the 

last pear makes when it hits the boil

When you speak Middle French 

All of your horizons are vertical (tasting)

If you don’t believe me, I could show you the footnotes, and all their wooliness