Month: 2022 مئی

Through darkness they came,              covered in ash, scarred by depths and distance, they bore salt and fire, breath steaming              at edges of decks, hands clutching railings, their bodies dizzied by the lurching vessel,              trunks pulled by hand, Where are you from? I unwrapped my legacy from cloth, the marble Buddha              from my grandfather, ancient as the sea-stained covers of his sutras, the briny odor              of carp centuries old. What are you? Not only where they were from but who they were              and would become. His strange past…

Last night, when the moon slipped into my attic room as an oblong of light, I sensed she’d come to commiserate. It was August. She traveled with a small valise of darkness, and the first few stars returning to the northern sky, and my room, it seemed, had missed her. She pretended an interest in the bookcase while other objects stirred, as in a rock pool, with unexpected life: strings of beads in their green bowl gleamed, the paper-crowded desk; the books, too, appeared inclined to open and confess. Being…