A room walled-in by books where hours withdraw

At the foot of an unmade bed a bird of paradise

Motel carpet melted where an iron had been.

His attention anchored to a late-night glory hole.

Of janitorial carts no heaviness like theirs.

Desire seen cavorting with the yes inside the no.

A soul kiss swimming solo in an open wound.

The self as church where the whores now gather in. (49)

     The potential insular protection of reading can be compared to the pleasure derived from a flower, but then again, the “bird of paradise” may also be a figure for a lover, especially because of its proximity to the “unmade bed“ and subsequent eroticized images. Is “a late-night glory hole,” which generally refers to a hole in a bathroom stall, convenient for anonymous oral sex, a TV fantasy or an actual lover in the room who engages in the play of permission and refusal in “cavorting” “desire”? Is the “solo” status of the “soul kiss” an indication that masturbation is the “walled-in” act of passion enacted by the person in the room? If so, the “gathering” of Magdelaine-like “whores” into the “church” of “self” (seeking a secular “paradise” or “glory”) would be the incorporation of stimulating images, not actual lovers. The mention of “janitorial carts” in relation to physical-and more significantly-emotional “heaviness” seems to suggest how difficult it is to clean up the mess of sexual passion and cart away its detritus. If the poem’s title suggests the presence of male sexual arousal, there is no “hard evidence” to use in judging the “self” or “whores’” psychological motivation, makeup, or precise sociosexual context.

     Liu has written a good deal of art criticism in recent years, and poems like “With One Eye Open” (56) and “Georgia O’Keefe: American Icon” (99) reflect this interest. In the O’Keefe poem, which parodies the artist’s reification into an “icon,” the single-line stanzas offer an arrangement of fragments that follow a temporal sequence but are in no way “seamless.” For example, while “Viewed an exhibition of controversial works on paper” seems a likely cause for the effect that follows, “Discarded old materials and mannerisms to start anew,” the next line, “Vacationed summers in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains,” appears to be a mere daub of insignificant local color, except that those who know O’Keefe’s work realize that this environment became a new subject. As the poem progresses, the gaps between “stanzas” become more and more intriguing:

Abstracted nature but still relied on financial support.

Moved into an apartment overlooking Lexington Avenue.

Rejected Freudian notions focussed on her gender.

Invited by Dole Pineapple to produce a corporate ad.

Acquired three acres in Abiquiu an adobe house of course.

Suffered a partial loss-left only with peripheral sight.

Awarded a Presidential medal, the highest civilian honor.

Scattered on the desert floor at the age of ninety-eight.

Commemorated a decade later on a U.S. postage stamp. (99)