Self-Portrait, With Five Hours of Sleep

The miser hoards his best coins
in a drawstring bag. He hides them

under his mattress, he takes them out
to spit on them and shine them, count

them into piles. But I, I break a few
more hours from the mostly depleted day

to feed to one more bristling task. Where
does it come from, unbending hunger

wanting to be fed, this maw that’s never
satisfied until it sees me nearly spent?

Axis

Birds reel overhead,
their dark punctuation departing

from the grammar
of rusted roofs— Street signs

point in the only
direction they know, until a wind

or some government decree
uproots them.

On the corner, the shoeshine boy
trades cards for comic books,

and the vegetable vendor is texting her son.
In the park where a man once whispered

Do not pretend you don’t know
what I want
, highland girls string

strawflowers on cord.
The sweet, charred odor of roasted corn

precedes dusk: hour of reckoning,
hour of bitterness, of surrender.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Silent drunk.

The dumpling maker

on Kayang Street hollows
a well in a mound of flour,

then pours in a trickle of water.
Outside in the alley, stray

cats mew near the garbage bins.
A scatter of salt,

then two fists in the dough.
He pulls and stretches

until a rope is ready to divide
into moons— Roll them thin

so you can fill them,
pleat them, crimp

each of their ovals shut.
Into the basket go

more than a dozen bundles,
their bellies plump,

their shrimp dreams visible
as filaments of steam.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Dosage.

Lure

They told me as a child,
pick the fish-bone from your plate and go

quietly behind the one
who is choking on her dinner. Find

a way to deposit
that mineral sliver in her hair,

and she will be spared.
I believed without asking,

trusted without coiling
my spine. How is it possible

I could hold out my hand then
and touch, or hold, and nothing broke?

 

In response to Via Negativa: Self-exile.

The Complaint Department is Now Open

I have nothing to wear,
said the soul, rummaging
through drawers full of socks—

I would like to have
a word with the night,
said the eye’s dark iris—

I have pockets full of seeds,
said the bitter melon that I sliced
into half-circles on the chopping board—

And I repeat everything you say,
said the northern mockingbird to the row
of machines churning in the laundromat—

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

The Hungry Heart

– for Nikky Finney and Jane Hirshfield

How was I to know there would be
an earthquake? I put on a soft new
black cardigan and went to work,
deciding I’d get the groceries
in the afternoon instead of
during my lunch break.

And how was I to know
he’d stop at a local bar
for drink after drink
then buy a used car, sight
unseen, squandering money
from our loan installment?

And how is anyone to know
when the month of muscled
flesh and feasting turns
into years of chemical
transfusions, of sharply
chiseled bones?

Once I witnessed a toddler
wake from the sleep induced
by a spate of seizures to say,
in a perfectly articulated
sentence, that she was
exceedingly hungry.

Once I knew a woman
who lay in a coma for half
a decade, then one day
sat up in bed, blinked
her eyes open, then asked
for a long drink of water.

Who knows when the slow
seconds catch up to the hour,
when misery decides it wants to eat
another kind of bread, when the herd
of stubborn anxieties finally
agrees to be led into the barn?

I also desire a homecoming, a waiting
bed with the familiar outline of my body,
the mat with strands of my hair and flakes
shed from my skin. And also I wish
that for such things, the price asked
of the hungry heart will not be so dear.

Respect

I was tired
of the backhanded remark
and the subtle inflection
floating behind yet another
decorative screen—

And I remembered
a woman from Turkey I’d met
at a conference long ago,
how she turned to speak
to someone giving her

a similar issue—
I didn’t hear
their full exchange,
saw only their gestures.
Later she said,

walking away:
You can tell
by the tightening
in the gut that’s trying
so hard to keep in its poison.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Prophet without honor.

Once upon

a blue moon, blood moon, I wanted

to see: but either I woke up too late
or the moon had by then finished

its brief shadow play—
And I wondered about those lovers,

the ones whose paths cross in the sky
only once a year because in the story

they are cursed, or their love
is forbidden, or someone decided

a story acquires pathos if cruel fate
is written into it— What happens

if they miss the great once a year
rendezvous because the train is late

or the alarm is set wrong or the same
old, same old ritual doesn’t quite

cut it the same as before? What if either
one starts to wonder whether it might be

better to announce Hey I’ve decided
to throw my name into match.com?

Only a saint could have that much
patience; no one could be that much a fool—

In other words, what is the nature
of a true, great love? No one’s

been able to figure it out yet,
here below as above.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Claims

The man who patrols the sidewalk
in front of his house turns on his sprinklers
so the spray is sure to deter pedestrian traffic
especially around the time that school lets out.
Also, he sets his trash and recycling bins
not on the grass bank like everyone else,
but at least a good six inches from the curb.
Once, I made the mistake of getting out of my car
to push them closer in, so I could have
a bit more room to park. He came charging
onto his driveway, glared hard, clearly
territorial. I held his gaze
but also looked beyond, steadfast
in my own right to be here,
the space I take up public
as the unsequestered air.