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We had agreed to embrace—
so why have you crucified me?

How many hammers
sang cuneiform songs into my palms,
so that the blows on ligament and bone
might become melodies for your rituals?

You dance in Arabic—
and remain unclear.
Our translation of each other falters,
when all I meant by dance
was a justification
for the stuttering of my seizures.

My fingers,
seeking kinship with nails,
began practicing how to become wood.

This could’ve been
just a simple wooden frame—
yet without a photo,
it is more arresting.

The nails are my blood brothers.
If I were to
tear
them
off—

a collection of nothing
would open its mouth
and devour me.

Devouring—
the deepest form of an embrace.

Now that wood has grown into my body,
is this union
a graft—
or a violation?

My hollows, in order to survive,
have accepted their emptiness.
They believe
their inner voids
can be filled—
lost, maybe—
but not gone.

Then why do your fingers
slide into my holes
as if to play a flute,
while I lie forgotten
behind long, sustained notes?

You crucify me—
and now I understand scarecrows.
Each scarecrow is a corpse
of a dance.
If you opened the cracks in their wooden skin,
you wouldn’t see a heart—
only a womb,
the first witness to the tale.

C
|
R _ O _ S
|
|
S

Still hoping the cross’s intersection
is where my heart lies—
every beat of it
was meant to shake the cage.

But my heart
gave life to the bars.

With half my body flesh, half wood,
I became a carpenter
born of trees.

I seek no wood—
except
my own trunk.

Aref Moallemi

When there’s not much more to live for,
And you don’t know what life has in store,
All you see around you is a cold, barren space,
And the constant strife you have to face,
You feel no vigor pulsing through your body,
It only knows agony to a sharp degree,
Despite all the hatred and carnage going on,
You then recall the little moments that spawn,
The stuff you look forward to see,
The daily moments that bestow you glee,
And all the loved ones that cherish you,
The people you always want to pursue,
You feel more of a reason to keep existing,
It’s easy to forget when strife keeps persisting,
But caring for someone pushes us to pursue each other,
Even if they’ll be gone in the future, rather,
If life won’t be flawless,
If you often make a blunder nonetheless,
If you haven’t made a mind shattering victory,
You’ll still feel happy,
As you learn to live and love once more,
You feel warmth pulsating from your core,
Having constant bursts of inspiration,
Constantly falling in love from this revelation,
You have a whole life ahead of you,
So see this beautiful journey through.

Tightly woven bamboo floors and eyes
of Shanxi women at the hairdresser
as flat irons annealed a girl into glass
thinned and weakened by the heat.

The girl screeches at her hair chopped.
Village women snatched her childhood dress shoes
mandated khaki trousers
exchanging small for large each turning year.
Her pursed smile forced as they cackle:
A woman deserves nothing more!

To that hairdresser she returned
her fingers running beyond the tips of shortened hair.
Crystal eyes in shards
back bent from working fields.

I tell Mother I hate being a girl
crossed legs and flowery dresses.
Mother’s silt-tinted, brittle hands run through my long hair
her fingers wrap tight around the curling iron
Says I was once a girl in Shanxi…

I wrote her
Happy words
Loving words
Jump on this
carousel
with me
No reply.

Another try
I wrote her
Invitations
Affirmations
Please love me
No reply.

She broke me
One more day
I wrote her
Still trying
to give her
the world
No reply.

I’m crushed
My heart
lies in ruin
I wrote her
Again
Ink pleading
No reply.

My inks run dry
My heart is full
yet broken in pieces
She doesn’t see me
I wrote her
One final time
No reply.

I peel myself with a paring knife
red-skinned and milk-veined
a fruit bred for rot
the sink fills with curls of me
leaving behind my hollowed core
mother says sweetness is a slow death
i believe her. i ripened accordingly
in the orchard of girls
i was the one the wasps worshiped
hallowed and humming
their stingers like prayers
they bathed me in nectar
crowned me in pollen
pressed the seed into me
and called me Persephone
i did not bruise
i bloomed in necrotic hues
hollow and whole
decaying and divine
men bite and taste nothing but bitter
still i shine, from the windowsill
golden with absence
ready for the next hand
that mistakes me for hunger

Oh my son, since you been gone my mind been on the run
Oh my son, since you been gone I feel like all is wrong
Oh my son, I wish I could sing you a song
Oh my son, I remembered when I first held you in my arms. Now I’m watching you grow like
fresh crops on a farm.
Oh my son, you will be back with daddy soon,
Unlike Macaulay Culkin you will never be home alone.
Oh my son, I remembered when you first turned one
We were in Jamaica eating coconut under the sun
Oh my son, no one can replace you
I remembered when I used to chase you
When I got your first toy car you asked me to race you
Oh my son, as I have you in my arms now, I will make sure to embrace you
Others may portray me as if I don’t love you but oh my son you know there’s no one above you
Oh my son, I will cherish these moments we are having now because I know nothing is
permanent but son our bond is prominent and dominant.
Oh my son, can’t nothing stop us because we are one.
I am your father and you are my son.

Love Daddy,

I am a predator of brackish waters,
paddling between sand and sea.

I live in the middle space, the fingers—
Outstretched hands holding back our tides, protecting in quiet, serving without ceremony.

I prey on snails and worms. Hard to find these days.

I am like the rest of us.
Vulnerable. Conditioned.

Vulnerable to the changing wetlands,
Conditioned to keep calling them home.

Branches tether their leaves, speckles of galls
litter the underside of the fiery green maple
neighboring a rough brown cocoon, soon to
birth the mourning cloak, its wings eggshells.

Like the cry of an impending war, the sky grew
dark and howled with calamity, a thunderous belch.
The maple’s hands turned upward, unveiling the
pale green beneath the fire, mites dropping to the mud.

Soft stems and pea veins become drenched in the
early July rainfall, the gale’s raspy laughter ripping
through the unmoving tree trunks, the creek cascades.

The papery swaddle stills, tightens, surrounding the butterfly
as the downpour and cruel breeze battle, a heavy twig snaps.
Plummeting down, the branch strikes the wet dirt, the
delicate cocoon cracking as gunfire erupts directly above.

Within a passing hour, the earth was quiet once again,
maple leaves returned upright and the cardinals whistled.
The mites creeped out of hiding, peeling through the damp
soil, congregating toward the feast, one which once yearned.

Little critters surge, remnants of the mourning cloak
finding repose within their unforgiving teeth.

Fear in the eyes
of a girl who can’t stand
being sent away
again.

You are beauteous, my dearest, you are beauteous.
Your mysterious gaze spreads
like a quilt over a spring meadow,
and if you look deep within it,
you will see astral flames and my soul floating.

In the hidden shadows that outline
your shape,
one seeks rain,
but your radiance blinds
every curious wanderer.

A bare hand rests upon your hair,
– velvet, weightless, amber strands.
The other on your hip,
on your curves,
on your scars,
a bucket descending into the deepest wells.

Cyanoglaucous.

A fever dripping sweat,
connecting pores and chains,
slowly upon your lips appear
two butterfly-like stains.