Soot

          Sometimes God comes to earth disguised as rust,
chewing away a chain-link fence or a mariner’s knife.
          From up so close we must seem
clumsy and gloomless, like new lovers

undressing in front of each other
          for the first time. Regarding loss, I’m afraid
to keep it in the story,
          worried what I might bring back to life,

          like the marble angel who woke to find
his innards scattered around his feet.
          Blood from the belly tastes sweeter
than blood from anywhere else. We know this

but don’t know why—the woman on TV
          dabs a man’s gutwound with her hijab
then draws the cloth to her lips, confused.
          I keep dreaming I’m a creature pulling out my claws

          one by one to sell in a market stall next to stacks
of pomegranates and garden tools. It’s predictable,
          the logic of dreams. Long ago I lived in Heaven
because I wanted to. When I fell to earth

I knew the way—through the soot, into the leaves.
          It still took years. Upon landing, the ground
embraced me sadly, with the gentleness
          of someone delivering tragic news to a child.

-- Kaveh Akbar, from Calling a Wolf a Wolf, Alice James Books 2017

PLEASE CONSIDER YOURSELF AND FRIENDS Invited to COME HEAR                KAVEH AKBAR read POEMS tonight at 7pm in Kimball Theatre. Free & Open to all. Followed by a Q & A, and book signing.  

The Visiting Writers Reading Series is sponsored by the Department of English, The Robert and Mabel Groseclose Fund, The Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty, and by a generous donation from the Lawrence Parke Murphy Trust.