Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip. Lisa Robertson

with delight. Now what surprises me

      Are the folds in political desire

      Their fragile nobility, Sundays of

      Rain. Listening to music, things pass.

      I cry softly thinking of friendships then

      Begin again to invent the line of

      My life amidst utopia. Probably

      This is the centre – the worn-out house, walls

      Humming the repose of systems, the

      Modest light, but I wanted an urgent

      Line to begin the future, something like you,

      What will you do with your legs and your heart?

      Some think only of pleasure in their projects.

      I am one of those people

      Or so desire. I needed to make a living

      So provoked astonishment. What I said

      Is already gone, locked in

      Migration. Sometimes we make things that seem

      To have will – yet the beautiful life of

      The house is each day more fragile. We suffer

      And laugh and swim. We go

      Daily to the botanical gardens to witness

      Complication. Each plant becomes what we

      Love in its other language as we rest

      Near the privacy of women. I wait patiently with this voice

      At this late hour, in our rudimentary

      Lodgings, in our migrations, and the future

      Is terrible and is a play

      Of liberty. Work that ignores the night

      Is not my work. I’ll solicit nothing

      But ornament, that spacious edifice –

      Kinds of ornament are change

      Because it will change anyway

      Beside the privacy of women

      When I’m with them I forget

      The simplest fact

      Of loneliness which is not regret

      I will take my privacy

      Into its hotel.