after gilles deleuze

City is a way of forgetting
the darkness that surrounds us

so fly me east toward the gathering
of names.

It’s a dance of mechanics,
just a couple of lights:

not only, but it’s me and lonely.
Sometimes.

In all ugly rooms
all the people are sad.

City is undoing the always
that performs us:

Here I am!
In this space between the lights,

making the space greater
pushing the lines apart.

This is for someone who has forgotten
her flight.

Silly to think we had to know
each other’s mind

I mean
how dare you.

There isn’t meaning in what we say.
Improvise a little,

just a couple of lines.
We move each other around.

###

Stefania Heim is the author of the poetry collection A Table That Goes On for Miles, winner of the Gatewood Prize and forthcoming this winter from Switchback Books. She is completing a PhD in English at the CUNY Graduate Center, writing a dissertation on Susan Howe, Muriel Rukeyser, and the scholar’s art.

“A Third Party Who Says Me” was originally published in Aritficial Intelligence (TLR Fall 2013).