Poetry

                             Someone is putting the world back together                                                                                   —Aaron Smith Here’s what’s different: Bruce, who is now Sheilawon’t join a gym because she’s still transitioningand can’t change clothes in either locker room.She’s between two rooms of time. And the country is differentbut the same—everything we talked about. Nothing really changesexcept extent. But there’s a lot more death…

from Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmısınız or Long Words,a sequence of poems that take their titles from the English translationsof long words in various languages. This poem is drawn from  Pinakanakapagpapabagabag-damdamin, a word in Tagalog. is qualified by an inserted parenthesisthere is of course a difference between disturbing and upsettingbut that is registered fairly deeply in the person saying…

Ramphal sat in the section of Georgetown Cinema Called The Pit, right up under the big screen Where all the bad boys congregated To hoot, whistle, and offer slapstick outbursts, Even instructions to the cast, as the film rolled. Next day, in a corner of the schoolyard, He narrated whole westerns to us, Starring Audie…

Already dying, she would lead the way to a table Full in the window and watch out eagerly Over the hurry of life under the sun, drank this Till the coffees came, then woman to woman Asked after my life that would continue a while yet Beyond hers. The heart side, she asked, What of…

And in that same tempest the Austrian Ambassador Fearing he stood on the brink of drowning Flung his snuffbox, on whose lid was painted His mistress naked, into the sea. Unlikely He hoped this would persuade the god Poseidon To rebuke the wind and the wind would cease And there’d be a great calm. No,…

for Kang, born in Sonchon, North Korea Better not to have been bornthan to survive everyone you loved. There’s no one left of those who lived here once,no one to accuse you, no one to forgive you— only beggar boys or black-market wiveshaggling over croakers and cuttlefish, hawking scrap-iron and copper-pipes stripped from factoriesin the…

Where did the dust come from and how much of it do you have? When and where did you first notice the dust? Why didn’t you act sooner? Why don’t you show me a sample. Why don’t you have a sample? Why don’t you take some responsibility? For yourself, the dust? Personally I’ve never suffered…

She thirsts for her lamb, minutes old, still-born and cooling in a cold dawn, licking him clean with a growl of love till you turn her away, steal the corpse and rip with the hiss of the blade in a single tear throat to tail. The stripped flesh is a breath of steam, delta of…

           for R. S. Thomas Never more than a shadow, a silvering wind crossing a field, two ears alert in a gap then gone—its empty form warm, like a room someone just left, its heart leaping the earth, the silent immensities. Once, on a cliff walk, we saw it, a clod…