The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog
knows one big thing.
—Archilochus, 680–645 BCE
Well, Archilochus, I guess your lyre
might help me mock, and maybe mourn, this loss—
today I broke the frosted Elvis glass
I bought at Graceland when the symposium
of poets toured the mansion.
I said nothing and thought
of the Foro Romano—
its basilicas, temples, arches—
imagined being by the Lapis Niger
confessing by the tomb of Romulus
and listening to Livia.
Was it all simply adornment,
watching the rain fall from the sun,
or the mourning dove that carried
the wallet-sized photo in its beak?
Looking back, it was true—
I had stopped seeing the beauty in it all,
living from moment to moment,
looking to be granted some small sense
of pleasure, as if by respite or charity.
Rome, New York
after Austin Araujo
In my favorite picture of you, the hair blown across
your face, obscuring your face, it’s easy to make out,
deep in the distance, the hangers of the air force base
classified as a superfund site, a sprawling huddle
of buildings expanding out into the extent of the valley.
Maryland, 2020
My partner wears the panopticon,
and I carry the rope. Hungry
for the rush, the chase, we locate
the missing black calf
about two-tenths of a mile
from East Silver Spring.
He’s wearing a long-sleeve
jersey T-shirt, navy blue jeans.
We are stretching towards each other,
words tangling. The words can’t always
be torn apart. Sometimes you
are ти. Sometimes we touch.
Jane loved her and often thought of her skin.
Its misleading surface area always moved her, how it wrapped around
and became infinite.
I saw a barn owl staring out from a telephone wire
driving down the road with the sky looking
like the edges of the newspaper we crumpled
into balls to light the woodstove
By MARIA JOSEP ESCRIVÀ
Translated by PETER BUSH
Who
Who has ever felt the shock of a brook
being sucked dry by the warm earth?
Who has ever felt the shock of the last
house falling apart in the mountains, mineral
corpse, stone by stone, bone by bone
of each man banished?
Winner of the DISQUIET Prize for Poetry
By IQRA KHAN
Watch the poet read from this piece at our Issue 28 launch party:
I begin as revelation. As explosion of glottal light against silence.
I am again asking for directions to the Haram, my ankles fluent in Arabic.
I am again asking for direction, ya Haram, my ankles flowing with Arabic!
Hagar, watch how God transforms this wilderness to civilization.
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