26th line of Eileen Myles’s “Triangles of Power”

Hung up on the “natural elements” that could number either two (cold night and digestion) or the more triangular three (cold, night, and digestion). I hear some amor fati in this gratitude. This poem seems an embrace of  the “low-glowing” appetites, the more immanent and base ones, even if (or because!) these get us running around in circles (from one January to another, and from each January “looking forward and back.")

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Any trinity might be the holy family. Maybe we can read the poet's “fast-walk” as analogous to Mary’s frantic search for a place at Bethlehem for the impending delivery (where another “trinity” comes to mind: food, clothes, shelter). The transcendent great star in the nativity scene is replaced here by “low-glowing” hunger. That last part, where the author changed, that seems to me evocative of both the annunciation and the delivery of the prophesied baby.

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Another triangle involved here could be Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The goings-on depicted in the poem are “low-glowing,” hungers to be found near or at the base of that pyramid. Poetry (along with other creative, “noble,” and “enlightened” achievements) belong to the apex: self-actualization.

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And the pyramid on “The Great Seal” of your regular US$. In relation to this, the ampersands seem to be a good visual choice on the part of Mayer. Knots and all.

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In the poet’s case, the delivery of the utterance. In mangers the world over.