Phillip Griffith

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