being singular plural

I brought this poem up as an example in my group today when we were thinking through the idea of being singular plural... this is a poem by Mark Doty, who wrote a lot about the AIDS epidemic & lost his gay lover to AIDS-related complications. My poetry book describes his work as being "attentive to the way an individual sense of identity is shaped by collision with the collective... with the troubling fact of self-in-the-world. The political force of his work is personal rather than polemical, drawing on what scares and thrills him." Sounds pretty Munoz-ian to me! I think this piece is such a beautiful example of longing for collectivity:

A Display of Mackerel

They lie in parallel rows,

on ice, head to tail,

each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,

which divide the scales'

radiant sections

like seams of lead

in a Tiffany window.

Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,

the wildly rainbowed

mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.

Splendor, and splendor,

and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other

--nothing about them

of individuality. Instead

they're all exact expressions

of the one soul,

each a perfect fulfillment

of heaven's template,

mackerel essence. As if,

after a lifetime arriving

at this enameling, the jeweler's

made uncountable examples,

each as intricate

in its oily fabulation

as the one before.

Suppose we could iridesce,

like these, and lose ourselves

entirely in the universe

of shimmer-- would you want

to be yourself only,

unduplicatable, doomed

to be lost? They'd prefer,

plainly, to be flashing participants,

multitudinous. Even now

they seem to be bolting

forward, heedless of stasis.

They don't care they're dead

and nearly frozen,

just as, presumably,

they didn't care they were living:

all, all for all,

the rainbowed school

and its acres of brilliant classrooms,

in which no verb is singular,

or every one is. How happy they seem

even on ice, to be together, selfless,

which is the price of gleaming.

&

Here's a lovely, astonishing visual ;)