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My desire for there to be an afterlife
equals my conviction there isn’t one,
sing as one may, alone or in unison,
“When we all get to heaven.”
A heaven less screwed up than earth
where we long, and love and hurt.
An eternal present from which we look
down at the past; everyone has one
and everyone’s isn’t exactly alike.
Willa Cather to Isabelle McClung
My Darling Izzie,
This city is so different from the West,
where the land tints
and weathers the people.
Or rather, everyone here is shaped
by a land somewhere else.
In that sense, I resemble the New Yorkers.
I start to view Nebraska
differently. The faces I grew up with
begin to soften and meld
into characters.
Europe in the Nineteenth Century: A Stereopticon
Wrecked on opium, Thomas DeQuincey
sees Coleridge’s foot as a goldfish
in an aquarium missing its walls.
The young Alfred de Musset is touching
George Sand’s left nipple
with a sable watercolor brush.
“Tu m’aimes?” he asks her.
“Et toi?” She turns her head
and blows cigar smoke in the face
of the Paris dawn.
The Death of a Butterfly
We have school tomorrow, Kyle.
I’m sorry to take you back to Wichita
from your family in Chicago. I made Emmalie
take a picture of you and Agnes sleeping
in the backseat. I’ve just smashed a monarch
on 36 highway, and the Sun is fleeting.
texts to abe lincoln
1.
abe, it’s been a century and a half
since we last talked. how the heck are ya?
my mom got rid of the bunk beds
when i was 10. i didn’t marry that girl
i liked in the first grade. feelin’ okay.
Visit to the Grave of Abraham Lincoln
I’ve been to the Lincoln Memorial quite a few times with the childish, stubborn understanding that Abe was buried there, that a memorial required an actual corpse to be complete, something to mourn beyond a field of marble embossments, but it came to my attention, really through a logical progression where I first noted the openness of the space, my pure and complete map of every portico, every chamber and the severity of its molding, like a mausoleum, a place designed to eventually fall into disrepair, to fall in ruin against the summer sun, heavy rain threatening the indifference of its tennessee marble;
Economy of Waste
Watching birds crisscross the solemn sun
Quivered in the reflection of gentled waves.
Far away cobalt mountains stood hushed and frozen.
Mellow ivy, cool grass, beneath the feet, wet sand.
September in Dhaka
Everything around me shimmered
through my irises—lights, colors, a dun sky
seamlessly curved into the earth, neon attires
strewn on wet tracks, outlines
of shadows scudding across faces, but if
some faces reminded of other faces
I would awake, suddenly discovering myself
against the immense expanse
of a city I could escape only with my soul.
Participation Prizes in Byzantium
The fountains are quiet, gardens brown,
concubines choreograph the palace
and are directed by eunuchs.
The best go off on pilgrimage
while the arcades cough up
cobwebs instead of silks in every color.
1776 Versus John Adams/Boogie Nights Versus American Hustle
How many levels of nostalgia are you on?
I know, counting seems to take the fun out of it,
Yet, there are limits and there are levels,
Again, how high and how wide
Is your painful longing for the past right now?
To the Porter Sisters, Amrita Pritam, and other Women they did not teach for my Literature Degree
I’m so sorry your celestial minds
Were deemed unworthy of the spotlight we’ve dedicated to the man who would
Never been known if you were not the first bloom
And stories written by
Ivory powders
And male egotism,
Half-hearted “I love my wife when she obeys me” sagas--arrogance and bigotry
Buddha Was a Husband, Father,
And a son. We know he loved his mother.
Mourned her in the myths where he caused her death.
Cherished her in the ones where she didn’t die.
Heard her when she called out Siddhartha, Siddhartha,
come sit next to me and listen to my voice. Siddhartha,
love is everything. You must love. You must love
august, nineteen-forty-seven
your mother tells you to drench yourself in every piece of clothing you own and you do not want
to be a jungli so you wrap your torso in kurtas and salwar kameezes and layer your long legs in
tight churidars and you want to bring your ghagras but they are too heavy to run in so you leave
Confessions
wǒmen—or to say—we
are waiting by the sea, & i watch
my mother confess to receding
shorelines. there is only plurality
in her stories, only wǒmen, only
A Photograph Standing on a Wooden Bridge in Berlin 1945
How do you come back normal
from Deliverance Day