Jargon

/ Issue 15.2 /

I love you. There, already, lies the rupture,
the lie. That coarse, four-letter word between us—
partitioned! I/you, subject/object. Love
extracts that backslash like a splinter,
so slight, so painful. Oust that verb and merge us,
my you, your I (deliciously) vice-versa.
One, like two waters: one body of water,
rhyming with bayou. Coupling gets it just
as wrong. We do not make a “couple.” Iyou
is oneself, with no space between: Fleshflush.
We love each other. No—since no collective
is two and one at once. Not even “we.”
What “other”? I, love, you: Pair, appear, apart.
What lovers do and make and swear, we are.

Amit Majmudar

Amit Majmudar

Amit Majmudar is the author of five critically-acclaimed novels, four collections of award-winning poetry, a book for younger readers, and a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita with commentary. Three new books are forthcoming in 2023: a memoir (Twin A, with Slant Books), a book of essays (Black Avatar and Other Essays, with Acre Books), and a three-volume retelling of the Mahabharata (with Penguin India). The former first Poet Laureate of Ohio as well as a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist, he lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children.
Amit Majmudar

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Author: Amit Majmudar

Amit Majmudar is the author of five critically-acclaimed novels, four collections of award-winning poetry, a book for younger readers, and a translation of the Bhagavad-Gita with commentary. Three new books are forthcoming in 2023: a memoir (Twin A, with Slant Books), a book of essays (Black Avatar and Other Essays, with Acre Books), and a three-volume retelling of the Mahabharata (with Penguin India). The former first Poet Laureate of Ohio as well as a diagnostic and nuclear radiologist, he lives in Westerville, Ohio, with his wife and three children.