Kaveh Akbar – Guernica

Tassiopeia

Feature image by Joseph Cornell, Penny Arcade, circa 1962. Collage and ink on board. Image via Swann Galleries. Listen: Your browser does not support the audio element.Click here for the mp3. don’t ask someone if they’re afraid of dyingit’s tasteless and they’ll always lieinstead ask if they’ve ever been chained up in a dungeontime yellowstaining their skinor if they’ve ever had to collect rainwater for weeks on end stretching out rags to soak up wet to squeeze through their lipsthe rain- water here is full of phosphorous if you drink too much your kidneys faileverything has limits my grandfather fixed watches for half a century until cataracts thick as figskin took his eyeswe tell this kind of story to stay humbleconsider the carnival geek choking on chicken blood consider the dazzling fortress of copper sucked back into the earththe soldiers tumbling into the split were bad seeds they never did sproutthe best part of God is the math of God you can count the pearls leading from here to himsometimes faith feels too far away to be of any usea distant moon built from the prophets’ holy bonesother times it’s so near I can hold it between my teethI am as good as my wordwhich is to say I’m keyless as the language of twinsthe womb is a clammy pulp of shredded tongues where we choose our obsessionsI came out hot as a punched jawmy head a beautiful blushing pistachioto reach me now you will have to figure out my birthnamea hintit rhymes with Tassiopeia do you understand what I’m sayingI confess I have been trying to seduce youI’m not the fat egg I claimed to beI’m sorry for that and for all the tearsthe delicate emotions should have felt more hypotheticalI have mastered this grammar and little more