Mercury

I want to speak the language
Of my twisted
Heart’s transparency

Composed in her direct, accessible, consciousness-piercing style, Ariana Reines’s Mercury comprises a group of long poems. These interlocking works speak to the substance and essence of what is said, transmitted, transacted, “communicated” between persons. Reines proposes that substance and essence are opposites, and explores this in contexts including commercial cinema and internet porn. [publishers’ note]