April 23: from The Palace
Martha
from The Palace
Kaveh Akbar
I have a kitchen device
that lets me spin lettuce.
There is no elegant way
to say this—people
with living hearts
that could fit in my chest
want to melt the city where I was born.
At his elementary school in an American suburb,
a boy’s shirt says: “We Did It To Hiroshima, We Can Do It To Tehran!”
·
At his elementary school in an American suburb,
a boy’s shirt says: “We Did It To Hiroshima, We Can Do It To Tehran!”
·
The take-home trophy:
roasted goat baying on the spit.
·
A boy’s shirt says: “We Did It To Hiroshima, We Can Do It To Tehran!”
He is asked to turn his shirt inside out.
He is asked? His insides, out.
After he complies, his parents sue the school district.
Our souls want to know
how they were made,
what is owed.
These parents want their boy
to want to melt my family,
and I live among them.
Palace throne. Comfy, burning.
I draw it without lifting my pen.
I draw it fat as creation—
empty as a footprint.
·
How to live? reading poems, breathing shallow,
spinning lettuce.
----
Read or listen to the full poem here, with an intro by Kevin Young. (Backup link.)
More Kaveh Akbar:
+ Against Dying
+ What Seems Like Joy
All our yesterdays:
2025: Staircase, Adam Gianforcaro
2024: Available Now: Archaic Torsos of Both Sexes, Gregory Orr
2023: Search Patrols, Ilya Kaminsky
2022: The Problem with Travel, Ada Limón
2021: When I Say That Loving Me Is Kind Of Like Being A Chicago Bulls Fan, Hanif Abdurraqib
2020:from Children Walk on Chairs to Cross a Flooded Schoolyard, Patrick Rosal
2019: If Life Is As Short As Our Ancestors Insist It Is, Why Isn’t Everything I Want Already At My Feet, Hanif Abdurraqib
2018: Bliss and Grief, Marie Ponsot
2017: Verge, Mark Doty
2016: Ever, Meghan O’Rourke
2015: The Two Times I Loved You the Most In a Car, Dorothea Grossman2014: May Day, Phillis Levin
2013: The Triumph of the Infinite, Mark Strand
2012: Mermaid Song, Kim Addonizio
2011: the laughing heart, Charles Bukowski
2010: from Jenny, Genya Turovskaya
2009: A Step Away From Them, Frank O’Hara
2008: Entry, Lisa Sewell
2007: Meanwhile, Richard Siken
2006: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, Amiri Baraka
2005: Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne