poetry
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Buckets of Rainwater
Proudly, he awakens his three youngest at dawn, they’ll share eggs, herring and tea. Zeb, his oldest won’t visit from his conscription in Sanai for another 3 to 4 months while an opaque gray of sadness clings to the walls and his wife Sedja’s ashes sit above the makeshift mantle, her lungs first, then…
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Dialectic
The absence of Desire is sometimes Called peace. See flowers. Smell them. See birds. Hear them. Imagine their absence. Who can deny life’s desire for more life? The absence of desire is sometimes called peace, But perhaps only by those too weary To witness spring. Dialectic by Jason Syzdlik Jason…
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Our Backyard After You Left
The stairs to the backyard are dusty with un-swept dog hair. They cling to my footsteps as I run by; the need to follow still hiding in their genes. The chickens peck holes into the sweet nasturtium caging them in. An unlucky worm is found between stalks and chicken wire. The path to the…
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“my new friend”
“my new friend” don’t follow me like that with your sleazy saunter and those toned (bone-d) twigs wobbling wedges dollbaby dress hippie handbag and impossibly long locks the color of crows (screaming murder!) the color of cats, those black island cats, following me all over staring me down with eyes the color of citrine don’t…
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Advice for Modern Americans
Don’t let your children study abroad, Don’t let them go overseas. The things that they learn in the rest of the world Are things that can’t be unseen. Don’t let them work in a foreign concern, Discourage that class in Chinese. They’ll never get work at the Credit Union, They might also bring back ideas.…
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This Morning
I went for taro, custard, and red bean buns. Shrieks above from an argument broke my somnolence; a gull defended the cross it perched on from a circling raven’s assault. The vanquished raven landed and sulked. Do I call it augury, score a win for yang, or remember Jeffers, who wrote, “it is bitter…
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Luggage Fee
Pre-Partition luggage tag for the ancestral round-trip Attendant sees my belly and lets me board early with the still-complete families Lahore traffic clouds my open eyes, the only part of me that can pass When storm-windowed shut, they only dream in American and only got here by exhausting the question: How much of Daughter’s climate…
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The Things You See
These are the things you see yet I remember: first, the animals in cages too small, littered with empty strawberry soda cans; then, the yellow cocoon of a puttering bus to Aden, …
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Who’s Counting
Written by: Rachael Scarborough Who’s Counting by Rachael Scarborough (poetry, accessible version)
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When Tadpoles Become Frogs
“How do they know, do you think?” she asked me. Water fell in streams from between her cupped hands as she squinted into her palms. We squatted beside the ditch, as we did every day on our way home from school, endlessly fascinated by this gurgling stream funneling down the ditch next to the road.…
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