Author’s Note: The speaker of the poems in The Golden Abacus is alynched man. As his body decays, animals, the wind, carry the body todifferent parts of the world. What isn’t carried away seeps into the earthand travels back in time as it mixes with the earth and stone. He, thebody, constantly transforms and speaks…
Great Crested Grebes It is spring—let us call it spring—where February tips the wings of March with whitened skies; here, where this dance of birdsis the slowest, kindest measure, the arc and rainbow of their mirroringa graceful shimmer and a bright display. The water and reflection askno question of themselves. Headshake, head turn. He dives…
i. Rahim Oh my son Let my lovecushion the weight of your head. Let me take your hurt I will hold it while you restI will fold it into my body. Sleep, my angel,my flower, my brave, sweet boy. [Child with extreme hydrocephalus—deformity of face, body and ear—and defects of cerebral nerves.] ii. Sabir I…
My first steal: an ice-pop, coaxed from the cornershop freezer andlifted: a brittle, syrupy limb that fused—beneath my shirtsleeve—onto my skin. Second, a tidy slice of apple strudel (cadged behind the café proprietor’sback). Its fudge of apples branded my pocket with a bloom of grease. Years on, the shoes: size eight men’s brogues. I had…
She says it’s haven’t, not ent. Miz Jezameen Henacre wears long-tailed glovesspilled over her skinnies like milk froth. She fears palm-skin maybe, its thinness. She teaches me how to say her name,sharpen the een. She totters her bell skirts, her own self, here from the Mission housemidway through Sundays, when our floor and walls are spanking and…
a little one, drab, barely skyborne,with nothing of the gut-unravelingacumen of the scavenger this is Jackselflimping across marshland, making a decoyof himself, piping up when the day goes dim,so close to the ground he’s almost it small wonder Peewitis the name the other boys have given him,not Jackdaw, not Rook the gods of bracken and fly-tipped tornblack plastic…
Lately, I see through a narrow chink in a stairgate.I see doors and think: can I get my pram through that?In the park, I dole out small snacks—ricecake, popped grapes, elven cheeses. If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would be infinite but I have closed us up in stacky cups,a nursery and naptimes;in…
When my mother says I was her kittaken from her too early,I think not of cats but a wolverine,my devourer of snowfields, who,when she can find no more prey,eats herself, even the frozen bones.I crawl down the black phone lineas if it’s an umbilicusto the last refuge on our planet,towards whatever back countryhappens to be…
Her gaze is tipped with curare, her face farouchefrom the kids’ asylum where ice bathsfailed to tame her. Her claws are crescent moonssharpened on lightning. She swims through the star-splintersof a mirror and emerges snarling—my were-Mama. She’s a rainforestin a straitjacket. Where she leapsthe sky comes alive, unleashedfrom its bottle. My mother, trying to concealher…
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