Summary

"Powerless Structures Fig. II (Sanne)" is the first poem in Float, and it spans two pages. The poem is narrated from the point of view of an unnamed speaker, who reminisces about a woman named Sanne, who has died "in April 2010 of alcohol and indescribable longing" some nine years following the death of a man the poem refers to only as "him." It is unclear who this 'him' is. Perhaps he is Sanne's husband? Perhaps Sanne's lover? Carson leaves the answer open-ended, focusing instead on Sanne's history, and how this history intersects with the speaker's.

The poem begins: "her funeral / is in Sankt Johannes nine years after his / that goldsmuggler / she fell in love with in Copenhagen is how he appears in her eulogy." The speaker, it seems, has attended this funeral, and has heard the eulogy that describes both...