Karen Rigby
On the Failures of Plot
As in the square cordoned for storybook rhubarb, each furrow
pillowed. As in to lose to memory’s short-circuit. As in the ribbon
flying off when you open a grimoire, consequence
tying me to the tracks. Ground plan or secret, noun
or verb, plot’s pedestrian: I was born. I lived.
I cried. I’m terrible at spackling holes. I’d rather ink
horses with a wolf brush. The trouble with destination
is that nobody loves a maze sown in kudzu.
Forget what happened. Why write about plodding
when it’s the after I’m after? I only liked ornithology
for the field guide’s jeweled plates. My favorite poet
said end with an image. In Bangkok’s gutted New World Mall
koi bloom between a column and escalator. The page is a roofless
ghost ship. A pool glinting orange. Plot’s just a daymare.
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Karen Rigby is the author of Chinoiserie (Ahsahta Press, 2012). Her poems have been published in Bennington Review and Southern Humanities Review. She lives in Arizona. www.karenrigby.com