The Cold Read

The (eye)¹ of my island, your ego and (archipel-)²
We go circuitously round in our (sad)³ (caravel.)⁴
(The sails you name Vanessa,)⁵ and (over their)⁶ swell
Flaps the face of a woman whom we both (knew)⁷ well.

We carve a letter a day in our slow-growing essay:
((Vanessa aspecta! Esse insula est Vanessam esse.)⁸Looked-at Vanessa! To be an island is to be Vanessa.
Cum sciant de Vanessa, neque quam Vanessam fuisse,When we think about Vanessa, and not what she was,
Creamus in mente, ab mente nostra fugere posse.)⁹We create in the mind that we can escape from our mind.

We (spur)¹⁰ ourselves onward to new sobs and sighlands.
(She twiddles the thumbs of her (tick-ticking time-hands.)¹¹
She flaps overhead, convalescing,)¹²
As dread Vaness-philes dream, (con-vanessing.)¹³

^1.The land becomes the narrator, becomes what watches the narrator, becomes how the narrator watches himself.
^2.Dividing the word to signal what?
^3.Is the crew sad, or is the ship sad, or is the ship a stand-in for the crew? What’s that called?
^4.According to Wikipedia, a caravel is an important new kind of ship used by the Portuguese during the “Age of Discovery” to sail farther distances than they could before. Narrator and “you” are actively involved in imperialism.
^5.Who’s “you?” Note agency of “you,” rather than agency of Vanessa. Also, it’s called a synecdoche.
^6.Over there?
^7.Past tense — they realized they didn’t actually know this woman, and were just putting her on a pedestal?
^8.Latin…
^9.Author is writing to an audience that went to schools that taught Latin.
^10.That’s weird. Before they were acting like they didn’t have a choice to be taking this journey.
^11.Clock image is similar to the circular image in the first stanza. Poem seems to approach meaning but never reach it.
^12.She’s the subject of the sentence for once, but she seems impatient and depressed. What is she waiting for? Does she represent the expectations of the empire they’re acting on behalf of or a philosophy they’re growing disillusioned with?
^13.She’s the verb, not the agent.

(The eye of my island),¹⁴ your ego and (archipel-)¹⁵
We go (circuit)¹⁶ously round in our sad (caravel.)¹⁷
(The sails you name Vanessa,)¹⁸ and over (their swell)¹⁹
Flaps the face of a woman whom (we both knew well.)²⁰

We carve a letter a day in our slow-growing essay:
Vanessa aspecta! Esse (insulam)²¹ est Vanessam esse. Looked-at Vanessa! To be (an island)²² is to be Vanessa.
Cum sciant de Vanessa, neque quam Vanessam fuisse, When we think about Vanessa, and not what she was,
Creamus in mente, ab mente nostra (fugere)²³ posse. We create in the mind that we can escape from our mind.

We spur ourselves onward to new (sobs)²⁴ and sighlands.
She twiddles the thumbs of her tick-ticking time-hands.
(She flaps overhead,)²⁵ convalescing,
As (dread)²⁶ Vaness-philes dream, (con-vanessing.)²⁷

^14.The apple of my eye.
^15.Archi-pelican—
^16.Phys homework due tomorrow at midnight.
^17.Carousel, carousal, caravan.
^18.Strange swapping of subject and object.
^19.They’re swell!
^20.Why are there two people? The isolation seems better suited to “I,” not “we.”
^21.Insular insulam.
^22.The apple of my eye-land.
^23.Fume? Fugue state? Fuh-gear?
^24.If island is sighland, then sobs is obs?
^25.Is she a bird? Are they stuck in some kind of current, and can’t return to land even though they can see it? Is she the woman they left behind at port? Is she the albatross of guilt? I guess flags also flap in the wind.
^26.Sounds like “dead.”
^27.They’re doing, or making, “Vanessa,” together (con).