It was the year I refused to look at my own reflection. A bird flew into my brother’s bedroom window before falling onto the driveway, leaving thin, spidering cracks in the glass, a gaping wound in its head seeping blood. A jade ink drop of an eye still wide open, following me. Our parents cradled the starling gently in their… Read more →
A lozenge, a smoke, advice about my skirts and sons—people offer me things. Condolences. Leaflets: I shake my head, and still a man shoves one in my hand. Somehow he knows that at the moment of truth, when he lets go, I will not, that I will not let him make me an accessory to litter. With little children, it’s… Read more →
We had gone out for drinks to celebrate J.’s birthday the day he finally came back. He had a habit of disappearing, his body turning into a dense fog before metamorphosing into tiny crystals of ice where he used to be. Sometimes he would send a postcard from an unknown country, a picture of him floating on the surface of… Read more →
Four Poems: “Song of the White Lilac” (1934), “Violets” (1934), “I Am the White Lilac” (1934), and “Moonlit” (1938) Translated from the Russian by Bita Takrimi Song of the White Lilac Grant me the joy of a tender greeting,Crown my hair with your wreath today!– On the blooming day of summer’s meeting,The white lilac began its bright display. I crave… Read more →
hundreds the size of nailheads spawn in what shallows our banks contain darklets in mudclouds clay my brother stirs in fistfuls to sieve through between spaces of fingers here we are stillwater disturbances the canoe slicing into canebrakes the mobile of lures caught twisted in the limbs of trees we shade in we the waterbugs we the herons who stand… Read more →
A pregnant cat licking its fuzzy belly in a warm drizzle -Richard Wright In my shaking hand: a pee-soaked strip of plastic. At my feet, bare and cold on the February floor: a cat. We look at each other. I’m pregnant, I announce. I’m thirsty, she replies without words, turn on the faucet so I can drink. At the sound… Read more →
left alone to the no stranger of myself I lie in a furrow with my tongue dressed in shouts taken by strangeness my backwards love for birdcalls I whistle back to to cows chewing cud I eat mud for field mice the screech owls that snatch them up my love unmatched for paperbacks soaked in roadside puddles my love for… Read more →
These are the days of wonder when dusk runs a thousand miles to meet me waking up in the morning; red and blue clouds pile up behind the mango tree where I hid during the war to escape the barrage of bullets cascading down our roof, where bats gathered in the hot air, stealing the flowers and our breath and… Read more →
Of ominous skies we say we’re under a blanket Rain we describe as if bathed in turmoil at the foot of a cataract Because the world is almost round it wears a belt of humidity Sash might be more accurate I wear a heart on my sleeve Sometimes it is my own heart Sometimes it is a badge Forecasts contradict… Read more →
for us so much rests on them resting upon the ocean’s surface— their silent gauzes seeking & capturing light flimsy lung of the currents cut carbons cirrus sea creatures synthesising every second breath some gleam like milk-toned jewels— diatomic each borne in unfair halves which cradle each other tightly but gently enough tiny openings for growth & with growth their… Read more →