What Do You Do?

A Poem

I crouch

I hear

I feel

I see

I want

I tell

I cum

I give

I think

I tap

I know

I taste

I like

I attack

I refuse

I hope

I stink

I pull

I pump

I look

I am

I sit

I hump

I bet

I try

I cup

I discourage

I work

I piss

I smack

I yank

I fill

I clench

I ease

I drop

I grab

I turn

I watch

I despise

I ask

I decide

I meet

I talk

I remember

I wish

I make

I let

I believe

I do

I figure

I assure

I thank

I pass

I relate

I buy

I leave

I bring

I read

I guess

I imagine

I move

I focus

I mean

I fuck

I mention

I expect

I pick

I walk

I stumble

I get

I wonder

I reach

I fear

I lose

I put

I pay

I hurt

I keep

I deserve

I intend

I find

I suck

I bend

I push

I smell

I jerk

I take

I understand

I tear

I prefer

I display

I film

I own

I gain

I care

I feed

I choke

I choose

I suspect

I wrap

I face

I hold

I settle

I stroke

I ejaculate

I point

I hide

I suppose

I instruct

I purchase

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Artist’s Statement:

Taken out of their context, this is every verb that Sotos uses to when referring to himself (or at least when he uses first person) in Index, in the order in which they appear in the text for the first time.

Appropriation as poetry. Recontextualization as poetry. Poetry as poetry.

Without context, this poem could be about anyone, seen as everyone that reads it will be reading something “about themselves” (the entire poem is written in first person, so that whoever reads it is reading it in first person). The juxtaposition between the old context (Sotos) and the new context (everyone that reads it) creates a blending of personality and personhood, to the point it is indistinguishable which one is supposed to be which (much like Sotos’ work that reaches a point of indistinguishability between truth and fiction). You as a reader become Sotos, you become part of his fiction, part of his Index.

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