Rick Barot Poems

And what part of his reflection will tell me who I am,
that I am standing a little away, wanting in on his story?
...

It turns out there's a difference between a detail
and an image. If the dandelion on the sidewalk is
mere detail, the dandelion inked on a friend's bicep
is an image because it moves when her body does,
...

The boulder that is bigger than a house,
perched on the edge of another boulder, painted gold
and prayed to by monks in saffron robes.
...

I think about the mornings it saved me
to look at the hearts penknifed on the windows
of the bus, or at the initials scratched
...

Scintillas of the anatomical
on the vines, buds opening—
make me a figure
for the woken.
...

Dusk, thus:
a shirt drops,
the bellybutton rune
showing.
...

The worker's pants on a spider-filament line,
strung waist to waist to waist to dry.
The neat green wedge of park, always empty;
...

I have seen the black sheets laid out like carpets
under the trees, catching the rain
...

It is something to be thus saved,
a point on which the landscape
comes to a deep rest.
...

Would lightning do? Would a new watch?
There aren't going to be any plums, red
ones or green ones. My white shirt is dirty.
...