In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • M*
  • A. Van Jordan (bio)

Although it’s quite dark now, the city invites me to look for you. The people disappear, for the most part, into homes

or taverns or into one another, into the night. You know, white space proves most dangerous at night. Bodies stand out like museum pieces

to ogle. I love museums, even during the day, when women, filled to the brim with beauty, walk through the galleries, staring

with such curious intent. I love staring, too, at how the most public spaces turn intimate after dark. Why do the trees look

so alert under moonlight? Almost as if they witness my every move. I love trees; they never give up, do they? People,

clouds, buildings—the trees don’t care about what anything else does, they simply do what they came here to do. I’ve learned

so much from their example . . . And, yes, I know you in the audience wonder when I will say “Wer weiß, wie es ist, ich zu sein?”

in my broken German, but Peter Lorre couldn’t be here tonight, so I come, proving a worthy understudy. Perhaps [End Page 8]

it was his penchant for the young you were hoping to witness, like an accident you didn’t cause but of which you still feel a part,

a natural penchant to play voyeur. My tastes differ, preferring to watch the mature at play, learning from their adventures. But, please,

here I am, no translation necessary. Allow yourself the freedom to imagine, to fantasize as you wish; feel in me, hand by hand, each guilty,

God-discriminating touch come to a chord struck beyond your body’s will, facing an opportunity only guilt could keep you from taking. [End Page 9]

A. Van Jordan

A. Van Jordan is the author of Rise, published by Tia Chucha Press (2001), which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. His second book, M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, published by W.W. Norton & Co. (2004), was awarded an Anisfield-Wolf Award and listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times. Jordan was also awarded a Whiting Writers’ Award in 2004 and a Pushcart Prize in 2006, 30th Edition. Quantum Lyrics was published in July 2007 by W.W. Norton & Co. He is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2007), and a United States Artist Williams Fellowship (2008). He is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Michigan.

Footnotes

* For Fritz Lang, 1931

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