Mantis 18 (Spring 2020)
Amherst College
Sandra Doller
Architecture is an idea that you live in
Architecture is an idea that you live in. Watching the puddle on the roof
of the port like
someone has watched it before. Like this cloud cover covers over clods and
the one
distant still building biding through distinctive medjool palms. It’s all
roofs. I’ve got all
roofs from here and isn’t that envy, l’envie, the idea of another’s things. If
I move my
head a little to the right I can just make it. I can make out star colored
leaves leaving
traces and leavening my sight line like a hem. I wear my eyes like a skirt.
She had eyes
the color of a newbie. A red empty vase sits hollow in the hand. You can
make anything
this way. Any. Thing. Why is it wrong to right into the spaces. Not space,
not not a
moon, not a new page, an old horizon. How many years did a woman live
here before
me. This is the question you ask yourself before moving in. Once you move
in there is
no moving anymore.
SANDRA DOLLER writes words sometimes and says them, sometimes aloud. Her most recent books are called Leave Your Body Behind (Les Figues), and The Yesterday Project (Sidebrow). Current work includes something called Not Writing, collaborations, translations, and performances, and an anti- memoir called King Daughter. Doller is Associate Professor of creative writing, literature, and film at Cal State San Marcos. She lives in California, at the bottom.