Poetry

Here,the lichens are blue-greenlike copper silicates,and everything is horizontalin the gales that lastfor three days. With this isolationit’s a near-certaintyI can cobble togethera second creaturein my new laboratorybeneath the aurora. I dreamt last nightof an apothecary’s rosewhere the heart was,and when I wokeand saw the sunstrike a white-rising lark I felt such awe and eerinessI…

Nuns have broughtkneaded dough into the chapelwhere it rises without a draught silence brimswith this creature of bread,the smell of yeast against stone while outside,the perfect accidentof corn ripening the light.

My death grew along the edge of the yard. I’d crawl into her temple of plummet and root and once inside her heart it was hard to leave. I’d grow drowsy in the odor of her resin. Crushing the berries, I’d smell my fingers: they smelled of calamine and vomit. Through the roof of the…

I knew how to check for bullets:cylinder release, two fingers throughthe frame: five tiny seeds, five answersto questions my head kept asking.While my parents were at work,I dug dad’s revolver from his sock drawerand carried it around the house.I rubbed the cool barrelon my cheeks, traced itacross my lips like the faggot I wasputting on…

It is the train-off-a-cliff courting,the half-masteyes across a room, fingerslingering too longon the exchange of a book, a cigarette,an apple. Nights of seeing a facein the moon and finallyleaving the window to walk emptydawn streets in searchof a rock or flower to holdin your pocket for luck. The first tasteof the other’s skin, nervous-sweatturning to…

Maybea year can bejust what’s neededtoting its daysas a cloud its nightfresh from the darkA year might throwlight on everythingwho knowsso that all is knownand understoodthat would be niceor a yearmight fail to pleasenot ever wishto pleaseA year involves so muchis it worth trying againthe year won’t saythis week goes bythat week goes bynothing waitsFields…

Some years are lightas airyou don’t even have to lift themfrom your memorythey float their weightless goodiesin and out of your todaywith less fussthan a summer cloud roaming the sky but other yearsare heavy as a suitcase full of a murdered torsoheavier than plutonium or osmiumdarker than ten thousand leagues under the sea—you need the…

Can you believe I have cancer? Yosra asks,holding a mug of tea between her hands,her hair close to her scalp, almost laughing. I try to imagine the cancer auditioninginside her body, tiny translucent sliversof light weaving in and out and of her abdomenand uterus, traveling up and through her throat,needlepoints of light, fireworks fizzing down,…

Sometimes it’s tucked into itself,sewn up like the lips of a prisoner. After the procedure, the girls learnhow to walk again, mermaids with new legs,soft knees buckling under their new sinless bodies.Daughter is synonymous with traitor, the father says.If your mother survived it, you can. Cut, cut, cut. One girl exposes another girls’ secret, they…