Kelly Hoffer
Racket (i)
law-abiding with an itch
for undoing
contrition
practicing clauses
in my sleep as to how to
be the most active, the least
passive, as to how to be such
as anything like
a vector
/
eligible, legible I
saying the what of
my want and the giving
what for to what I un-
want, heaving
am I one of the unserious
my impatience has come
unquiet
/
the rage in my little pretty
head arranged against
the ordering principle
scale, embarrassing
limbs intact, a docile rage, really
every violence
in my experience
theoretical except
what my money does
in its free time, what
cost
/
to be abstract, useful
allowance, an opportune
shiver in the concept
am I, aren’t we
how does it feel
to be included
ear an eraser to be
had in the head
in the hand a mirror
and what good
timing
/
looking for a light
that escapes politeness
offering to be un-
pleasing—
create a mark
-et?
no, thanks
be the boss of any
-thing except
my own sentence
read that
any way you want
/
don’t just
stand there
help
refusal get up
off the
ground
Racket (ii)
on a kick with repetition
tricked out in
new plumes of smoke
on a continent just
forming hard edges
in the mind—
hello, windfall, hello
toxic uptick
is this the good fruit, she asks,
is this the good labor?
the money on the grid
is a new brand of color
mirage-bright
cone-worthy
an object
I am overly
it
an ethic of making
one’s own luck stuck
fingering shine
trailing ribbons
call me a prize pig!
suck on a line
entertaining a denial
tone, how’s your solitaire
dance-card? care to
ask where I got hitched—
the moon sputters through
its sickly honey
/
where have you gone
having spent
the good time
no one gave you
where can I go where
my language would
not follow
Racket (iii)
painted false eyes
on warships
to turn them mammal
bite here! avoid the brains
of the operation
lashes strategic in their shade
we keep the monument
in working order
/
I’d be done with
this if I didn’t feel
done in by
that, that is
undone
on a loop
that, is
grains spilled on
the horizon of a
voice on a
high-wire
tight-hope
tongue-tuck
dip-trick
bad to feel all
the electric fences
of the body
(the ins and outs)
of a want
of too few
options
/
my most capable
concept
eyeless—
nimble when it comes
to things we think to kill
in the dark