Something about the heat this year

by James Grinwis

Snapshot with Wolf

Wolf made of gems.

Wolf made of alligator scales,

pine wood, and gems.

Like a length of gristle,

a lanky cartilage, loveliness,

the wolf. A strand of grit

attached to bone, a heart made of

love-pulp encased in a boot. Something

about the heat this year, the way

it curdles the armpits

and the spaces between fingers,

other spots. Something about

losing the whole of one's work

because of an accident

and feeling no desire at all

to embark on it again,

opening the skull

to a fullness of missing.

*

Inside the wolf's belly,

it is warm: yellow adobe

covered with small, colorful sculptures,

Klezmer and Bedouin music,

the little booths occupied by,

in alternating time,

heavy drinkers, emaciated

insomniacs, desperate office workers,

pipe fitters, tea afficionados. Those with

massive schedules and those

with no sensitivity to such.

A little crate full of toys

occupies one corner,

on a shelf far above the others,

the old shotgun full of buckshot

which has not been used for years;

a museum piece, a lichened rock.

*

The landscape melts.

I am feeding on small things

scurrying along dusty canals in the landscape,

to become an appendage

of the wolf, placentally attached,

waiting for a sun spike

to nudge all the plants and stuff

up from frozen sleep.

From The American Poetry Review, November/December 2015.

The world begins at a kitchen table

by Joy Harjo

Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

            From "The Woman Who Fell From the Sky,” 1994.

Would I have seen a white bear?

                                                      by Lawrence Sterne

A WHITE BEAR! Very well. Have I ever seen one? Might I ever have seen one? Am I ever to see one. Ought I ever to have seen one? Or can I ever see one?

Would I have seen a white bear (for how can I imagine it?)

If I should see a white bear, what should I say? If I should never see a white bear, what then?

If I never have, can, must or shall see a white bear alive; have I ever seen the skin of one? Did I ever see one painted? – described? Have I never dreamed of one?

Did my father, mother, uncle, aunt, brothers or sisters, ever see a white bear? What would they give? How would they behave? How would the white bear have behaved?

Is he wild? Tame? Rough? Smooth?

Is the white bear worth seeing?

Is there no sin in it?

Is it better than a BLACK ONE?

from Tristram Shandy, 1759-66.

The Joseph my parents were thinking of in naming me

by Carl Dennis

Joseph's Work

In the great scheme of things, my job --

Overseeing the prduce at Sunshine Market,

Maintaintaining quality in the bins – can't be listed

Among the jobs of first importance,

I realize, but it does require some talent,

The same displayed on a larger scale

By the Joseph my parents were thinking of

In naming me, the favorite son of Jacob,

Who ended up as the overseer

Of all the Egyptian granaries.

It's true my work doesn't use all my gifts,

But neither did Joseph's work use all of his.

His gift for interpreting dreams, for instance,

Though it won him his place, wasn't required

Any time afterwards. If he used it then,

He used it at home, on weekends, the place and time
I use for playing my trumpet or teaching friends

Stretches for easing aches in their backs and knees.

And his work didn't ask him to use his talent

For forgiving wrongs. He would have been free

To spurn his brothers when they came from Canaan

In the time of famine to buy grain, those culprits

Who'd stolen his coat of many colors

Ten years before and thrown him into a pit,

Enraged that their father loved him the most.

Instead, he hugged them, weeping with joy,

Just as I, at moments less dramatic,

Have forgiven my brothers their bullying,

Though none of them has ever apologized.

And I've forgiven my fahter for not intervening.

Every Sunday when the weather's good

I sit for at least an hour on a bench in the graveyard

A block from my house and wonder how many

Of the dead around me might have been happier

If they's managed to put away thoughts of blame,

How many, if they couldn't managed to wish

Their enemies well, managed at least

Not to wish them ill, which is still worth something.

Friends or enemies, if they visit my store on Monday
To finger and sniff the fruit, let them find,

In a mound of pears or plums within their budget,

A few fit to be served at any feast.

From The American Poetry Review, November/December 2015.

Open up this obsidian skin

                       

                                                        by Emi Mahmoud

Mama 

I was walking down the street when a man stopped me and said,

Hey yo sistah, you from the motherland?
Because my skin is a shade too deep not to have come from foreign soil
Because this garment on my head screams Africa
Because my body is a beacon calling everybody to come flock to the motherland
I said, I’m Sudanese, why?
He says, ‘cause you got a little bit of flavor in you,
I’m just admiring what your mama gave you

Let me tell you something about my mama She can reduce a man to tattered flesh without so much as blinking
Her words fester beneath your skin and the whole time,
You won’t be able to stop cradling her eyes.
My mama is a woman, flawless and formidable in the same step.
Woman walks into a warzone and has warriors cowering at her feet
My mama carries all of us in her body,
on her face, in her blood and
Blood is no good once you let it loose
So she always holds us close.

When I was 7, she cradled bullets in the billows of her robes.
That same night, she taught me how to get gunpowder out of cotton with a bar of soap.
Years later when the soldiers held her at gunpoint and asked her who she was
She said, I am a daughter of Adam, I am a woman who the hell are you?
The last time we went home, we watched our village burn,
Soldiers pouring blood from civilian skulls
As if they too could turn water into wine.
They stole the ground beneath our feet.

The woman who raised me
turned and said, don't be scared 

I'm your mother, I’m here, I won’t let them through.My mama gave me conviction.
Women like her
Inherit tired eyes,
Bruised wrists and titanium plated spines.
The daughters of widows wearing the wings of amputees
Carry countries between their shoulder blades.

I’m not saying dating is a first world problem, but these trifling moterfuckers seem to be.
The kind who’ll quote Rumi, but not know what he sacrificed for war.
Who’ll fawn over Lupita, but turn their racial filters on.
Who’ll take their politics with a latte when I take mine with tear gas.
Every guy I meet wants to be my introduction to the dark side,
Wants me to open up this obsidian skin and let them read every tearful page,
Because what survivor hasn’t had her struggle made spectacle?
Don’t talk about the motherland unless you know that being from Africa
means waking up an afterthought in this country.
Don’t talk about my flavor unless you know that
My flavor is insurrection, it is rebellion, resistance
my flavor is mutiny
It is burden, it is grit and it is compromise
And you don't know compromise until you’ve rebuilt your home for the third time
Without bricks, without mortar, without any other option

I turned to the man and said,
My mother and I can’t walk the streets alone back home any more.
Back home, there are no streets to walk any more.

YaleNews, 26 October 2015

St. Crispin's Day

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!
KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin, Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispin's day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

The sun sets on the back of a wild goose

Water-Hourglass

The willow shoots long, the spring rain lightning

beyond the flowers, the water-hourglass

drips, distantly,

flushing the wild geese at the frontier

and the birds on the city wall,

but not the golden partridge painted on the screen.

The thin mist of the incense comes

through the embroidered curtain.

Overlooking the pond, her room is wrapped in solitude.

Against a red candle,

behind the brocade valence hung low,

her dream is long, unknown to him.

            Wen Tingyun (812-870)

Broken Lotus Root

Young, we threw away the pastoral years.

Now like a broken lotus root it is

impossible to join the present and the past. Then,

we waited for each other,

standing by the vermilion-railed bridge.

Today, I search for the traces, in vain,

along the deserted path buried under yellow leaves.

Through the mist all the peaks

seem to be highlighting the blue.

Setting on the back of a wild goose,

the sun turns into a dark red.

You left, like a cloud drifting away,

across the river. The memory of

our passion is like a willow catkin

stuck to the ground, after the rain.

            Zhou Bangyan (1057-1121)

Husband-Watching Rock

Where she stood looking out for her husband,

the water of the river flowed on

to the horizon. Now

she's turned into a rock, which

continues to look out

without ever turning back, day in,

day out, against the wind and rain

on the hill . . .

When he comes back,

the rock should speak out.

            Wang Jian (766-830?)

From Treasury of Chinese Love Poems, trans. & ed. Qiu Xiaolong.