In order to

Published on by Laura Bloomsbury 
I was working an antidote to
a friend as far as Berlin, to
a boarding house, furnished rooms, to
the Registry to 
be married, to
a studio apartment. Later to
the school, boys would remove, to
demonstrate the end to
the fastidious past, to
be launched into a place, to
enact spilled blood, to
insist history's read as allegory. To
catch sight of nothing
but our skin

I was working in a bookstore and as an antidote to the twin torment of exhaustion and boredom, one day I went with a friend on a walking tour. We made it as far as Berlin and there I met the man I would move with to a boarding house, then to furnished rooms in the flat of a civil servant, and from there one morning in January to the Registry to be married. Afterward we moved to a studio apartment and two years later to the school where boys returning from the war would remove their collars and sew them back on with red thread to demonstrate the end of their allegiance to the cruel and fastidious past. Everyone wanted to be launched into a place from which you could look back and ask whether the red was also meant to enact spilled blood. You could say so, but only if you want to insist that history’s minutia is best read as allegory. The fact is, history didn’t exist then. Each day was a twenty-four hour stand-still on a bridge from which we discretely looked into the distance, hoping to catch sight of the future. It’s near where you’re standing now. One day we were lying in the sun dressed in nothing but our skin when a camera came by and devoured us.
 “Two Nudes” Copyright © 2015 by Mary Jo Bang

An erasure poem from “Two Nudes” by Mary Jo Bang for dVerse’s Open Link Night where unprompted anything goes. (Listen to Mary Jo Bang explain the photo origins of her poem)

24 thoughts on “In order to”

    1. thank you Miriam for your shared appreciation of the erasure – for me they are fun, creative and a writing exercise in being more concisely precise with poetry

  3. Wonderful working of the erasure bringing a powerful piece to the surface. I love the possibilities of this form.

  4. What an interesting pattern you found in that text with the word “to” which is usually glossed over. I especially like the connection of “to enact spilled blood, to insist history’s read . . .”

    1. you’ve got it Maria – erasure’s are like finding a pattern for a poem within a poem. I was amazed to discover all those ‘to’s – all going somewhere, giving reasons.

  8. Interesting erasure poem. Though it is not a form i like

    Much🖤love

  9. I’d never heard of an erasure poem. “They” always say if it’s possible to cut a word, always cut it! It surely works here. Thanks for the introduction to another exercise in conciseness.

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