Declarations

Je est un autre. (Arthur Rimbaud)
I contain multitudes. (Walt Whitman)



1

I am a sweater. I carry my sleeping. I double. I do
the desires. I am swift with desire. I am heart as not
hurry. I am heart above, was not, is not. I start on
other light. I enclose streams, I enwrap when your
eyes are not. I inhale you, whether no other. I inhale
like some land. I have no sighs.



2

I am a thread. I am stresses. I still my language. I
rush and beneath. I feel the not in neither. I am still
the nightning, the let. I am next to the depths on
your river. I cannot coral. I am heave never. I have
having too much. I, having, have corns high my
boat. I have no moon. I have not turned. I have not
turned fly. I had even you, with words on. I, having,
had ever searching there.



3

I know beneath desert, and narrow, and gentle. I
have fingers, to kiss the first by. I call there, through
there, through capture if I care. I dare what I call
drinks. I do no other. I am heart, am wandering
head-on enough. I am a like-me heart with cocked
pulse. I am water on gently. I know, I am thrashing.




[An exploration of the lyric "I," the vocabulary for which is drawn from other texts (listed in the comments), nearly all of which give voice to desire. Further debt — not only to the authors whose lines serve as epigraphs, but also to Lisa Jarnot's Sea Lyrics — must also be acknowledged.]