Phillip Griffith is currently pursuing a PhD in French Literature from the CUNY Graduate Center. He teaches French at the City College of New York and has worked in the arts at New York City’s Creative Time and Atlanta’s ART PAPERS. His poems have appeared previously at La Petite Zine, the CUNY Graduate Center Advocate, and the REVOLUTIONesque issue of Esque.
from le livre de Jason
& we would refuse to take part unless the landfill sat in the yuletide dark or we knew
the others were coming
where the brick tower rises out of the river what is inside we wonder but the landfill
could be our secret or the river too
where out of the top of the tower rose
the white hair of our grandmothers rose
Ѡ
jason
comes out of a human
bouquet of flowers
or
the shower curtain
like the shower curtain
let me pull back
in the winter i watch jason emerge from the greeney fog of the street like a soldier he
started out in porn said my name like loud loud where the soldier is dead
suspicious of all that grows around him
rehearsal stamps
out fires
jason handles
a suspicious package
in the winter
i accept
on the street corner an improvised device that peels back the layers of jason
Ѡ
& we could ask our grade-school grandmothers or if they did not recall
like jason says
our grandmothers are like apollinaire’s & we could
consult the index
volume of an encyclopedia for the daughters
of their daughters / & seas of shutters & then take
off in their imitation
Ѡ
& if we were in love we could ask the men who have come together if they remembered
our grandmothers then share a drink with them at a friendly bar or we could
watch the lights for them fucking in the shadows behind our backs
