THE PARIS REVIEW
By Rachel Lapides
Public Domain
The first day of the new year brings new
additions to the public domain. In most cases
release depends not on the year
of publication but on the death
of the author. An author can die.
In some chamber lies the corpus
of law, code, codex. When you explained
to me the law, I feared most my ignorance,
that I would err in not knowing
what was error. I applied myself.
Certain items are more protected
than others: a fact cannot be copyrighted,
whereas an editioned set of facts can.
After death, correspondences,
unpublished intimacies belong
to the estate, if one exists. Otherwise:
debris. Laws, too, instruct
composition of the calendar year,
though such government must be partly
planetary. You taught me the planets,
geography, historic dates; you bestowed
on me the property of thinking. Now I
have accumulated many facts
but cannot differentiate opinions.
I haven’t been smart lately.
I want to report, you to tell me
what’s right. Even here are phrases
you would identify as evidence of cowardice.
You would have a thought I hadn’t thought.
In seventy years, fewer now,
maybe it will release into me,
your published and unpublished works,
a widening of the domain.
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