poetry
January 1st, 2010 | Issue sixty-eight

Second Person

by Rae Armantrout
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Second Person

Rae Armantrout
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Lemons, lanterns
hang late
into the evening.

But you are known
for your voluptuous retreat,

for leaving
your absence
on the air,

illicit, thin.

I know
you think
I wonder
if you think
of me.

This reflection
spins,

a bead on a string.

I can take it with me.

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contributor
RA
contributor

Rae Armantrout has published fifteen books, including Conjure, Wobble (a finalist for the National Book Award), Partly: New and Selected Poems, 2001–2015, and Versed (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award). She is the current judge of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. A new collection, Finalists, is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in March 2022. Armantrout is a professor emerita at the University of  California, San Diego. 

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