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The Under Secretary leans forward and draws an X and her ear-drops dangle like swords of Damocles. As a mottled butterfly is invisible against the ground so the demon merges with the opened newspaper. A helmet worn by no one has taken power. The mother-turtle flees flying under the water.

We saw a lot more of them dead than alive the living diffident by the side of the road as the far-off mountains flanked and intoxicated the speedometer into saunter The dead were interspersed on the asphalt their poor vision uncorrected by their auditory keenness like a blind spot in a poet and their fender-mangled corpses were occasionally ripped in two before vultures reached them In our rental van we left no mother bereft and orphaned no piglets Turkey buzzards and American vultures were the javelinas’ gift to us red and black scavengers that perched on ranchland fences the full span of highway they’d circle above in diminishing downward spirals or flinch at each other’s puffs and swells or away from incoming vehicles Still they shared the dead among them as we sometimes share our dead when we love our dead Javelina the Arabic word for mountain in its root and then the mountain coming closer to an ear became a spear

The Guardian reports on a Palestinian businessman who obtained a unanimous fatwa to open a pornography-free online sex shop to help couples reignite their love lives. The imams who approved the venture said: “Islam supports anything that helps a married couple to connect.” I’d like to alert the NSA agents tracking Arab men: anonymous brown paper packages will be delivered to married couples all over the Middle East. Before you call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff let me assure you, our people are starved for love, not bombings. Those late night calls from temporary cell phones? They weren’t plans to attack, just plans to rendezvous bypassing multiple layers of family surveillance. The breathless whispered Arabic on the line? Code: yes, but not sacred verses. Arab love falls under siege. Everywhere is public space and the public are a sober bunch. On our romantic jihads the path is long and arduous and fraught with prying neighbors. We can’t even find a place to take an evening stroll, our war-weary streets dilapidated, our squares overflowing with revolutionary traffic. And even though the garden jasmine pours forth its sultry perfume and a million stars crowd the night skies, everyone is indoors chain-smoking their lives away and watching the news. And the news has been old for a while now. Sometimes, all we have left is prayer. So the women pray for fundamentalism—strict adherence to the Sunna. And the Sunna says: “Let there first be a messenger between you.” Words and kisses first, O bring back the words and kisses.

It was a party Built for the minuscule elite Lost amid acres of scuffed marble, wanderers Newspapers & schoolwork People knew To speak in surreal, mechanical hyperbole Government, of course Monuments, behemoths Of relative luxury I know what you want to ask I want you to take the truth to the world Down in the city, loudspeakers Disappearing into a hidden gulag Centuries ago The monks appeared Every morning in the lobbies of our hotels A minder was beside them The monks followed us out into the parking lot

Why “raspberry jam tree?” Acacia acuminata. Mungart. The guilt of cut wood? Its smell, its bloody show? And that colorist’s jam envy, the lust for ropes of raspberry. Fence-posts sturdy and hardy and doused in creosote: to stand alone in Termitesville. The sweetness turns rust. And burnt offerings unless dried right through — say for a year on the pile. Hot as hell to fire. Nothing comes cost-free, we hear — those layers of its dozen years a demonstration in history as accumulation. Collective survey of occupation: the real corps de ballet, the shrubby scenery, bulldozed on roadsides. Ring a Ring o’ Roses. All those brandings. Emblem of our town that would miss no more than our rates. “High turnover” region. Think raspberry jam on white damper, think coals of fires. The meager shade for sheep and cattle and the denial of “unproductive” animals. Nuisances. Saw deep into rough bark, showered in pollen. Unholy fires at the end of winter; and all that premonition, all those seeds with snow in their bellies, snow that can’t fall from this faraway sky. So overwhelmingly familiar to me. No Old Country raspberry homesickness. Just an inkling of anthocyanin pigments. Why “raspberry jam tree?” Acacia acuminata. Mungart.

Neither my father nor my mother knew the names of the trees where I was born what is that I asked and my father and mother did not hear they did not look where I pointed surfaces of furniture held the attention of their fingers and across the room they could watch walls they had forgotten where there were no questions no voices and no shade Were there trees where they were children where I had not been I asked were there trees in those places where my father and my mother were born and in that time did my father and my mother see them and when they said yes it meant they did not remember What were they I asked what were they but both my father and my mother said they never knew

Her hair back from the wide round face flows, almost a girl’s, so thick, caught back in combs, racing and curling through them with blackest vigor, although it is pure white. Cracked face, dusk-colored: not red but with a deep red struggling under the coming night. The eyes shift quickly, the subway train jerks and rattles, green vinyl, light flickering, silver poles. Eyes driven from ancient calm, which may fear but is never frantic and says nothing, such as looks out from the old Indian portraits—calm is the one thing missing from the beauty of her face in the black window. Those unresting eyes there talk plainly: there’s no money at home, men young and old go wrong, life almost at its end is still day by day harried and perplexed.

Tell me a story, father please, And then I sat upon his knees. Then answer’d he,—“what speech make known, Or tell the words of native tone, Of how my Indian fathers dwelt, And, of sore oppression felt; And how they mourned a land serene, It was an ever mournful theme.” Yes, I replied,—I like to hear, And bring my father’s spirit near; Of every pain they did forego, Oh, please to tell me all you know. In history often I do read, Of pain which none but they did heed. He thus began. “We were a happy race, When we no tongue but ours did trace, We were in ever peace, We sold, we did release— Our brethren, far remote, and far unknown, And spake to them in silent, tender tone. We all were then as in one band, We join’d and took each others hand; Our dress was suited to the clime, Our food was such as roam’d that time, Our houses were of sticks compos’d; No matter,—for they us enclos’d. But then discover’d was this land indeed By European men; who then had need Of this far country. Columbus came afar, And thus before we could say Ah! What meaneth this?—we fell in cruel hands. Though some were kind, yet others then held bands Of cruel oppression. Then too, foretold our chief,— Beggars you will become—is my belief. We sold, then some bought lands, We altogether moved in foreign hands. Wars ensued. They knew the handling of firearms. Mothers spoke,—no fear this breast alarms, They will not cruelly us oppress, Or thus our lands possess. Alas! it was a cruel day; we were crush’d: Into the dark, dark woods we rush’d To seek a refuge. My daughter, we are now diminish’d, unknown, Unfelt! Alas! No tender tone To cheer us when the hunt is done; Fathers sleep,—we’re silent every one. Oh! silent the horror, and fierce the fight, When my brothers were shrouded in night; Strangers did us invade—strangers destroy’d The fields, which were by us enjoy’d. Our country is cultur’d, and looks all sublime, Our fathers are sleeping who lived in the time That I tell. Oh! could I tell them my grief In its flow, that in roaming, we find no relief. I love my country, and shall, until death Shall cease my breath. Now daughter dear I’ve done, Seal this upon thy memory; until the morrow’s sun Shall sink, to rise no more; And if my years should score, Remember this, though I tell no more.”

If this is a fracture across time and place, where past and future hold each other’s gaze, then should the world not call a moment’s halt, not hang like a fly-cloud at head-height when a downpour ends? Should it not let fireworks burst, then hold their sculpted light? Then we will see the glory of this wild, this liberated city, where everyone is held in green, red, gold of roman-candle arcs and rocket seed-heads. We walk among the rescued in their newly crowded bars. A couple caught mid-kiss across their table, waiter balanced on one foot with eyes of steel and arms of plates. A self-appointed prophet in a shirt and tie gapes, fish-like, caught halfway through a lie. I could lean and wet my fingertip in stilled champagne, tilted on a singer’s lip. You could grab a smoke ring from the ether between punters and the pole dancer, pocket it as proof, then we could take the air beside the float-glass river, where a busker rests her bow on a string, and you ask what are all these flesh-ghosts thinking? Far from a cheap trick, this city-wide hiatus, the cost per minute is prohibitive. We barely linger in this midnight space before words rush back, before kiss meets kiss.

Let not the title of my verse offend, Nor let the pride contract her rigid brow; That helpless Innocence demands a friend, Virtue herself will cheerfully allow: And should my pencil prove too weak to paint, The ills attendant on the babe ere born; Whose parents swerved from virtue’s mild restraint, Forgive the attempt, nor treat the Muse with scorn. Yon rural farm, where Mirth was wont to dwell, Of Melancholy, now appears the seat; Solemn and silent as the hermit’s cell — Say what, my muse, has caused a change so great? This hapless morn, an infant first saw light, Whose innocence a better fate might claim, Than to be shunned as hateful to the sight, And banished soon as it receives a name. No joy attends its entrance into life, No smile upon its mother’s face appears, She cannot smile, alas! she is no wife; But vents the sorrow of her heart in tears. No father flies to clasp it to his breast, And bless the power that gave it to his arms; To see his form, in miniature expressed, Or trace, with ecstacy, its mother’s charms. Unhappy babe! thy father is thy foe! Oft shall he wish thee numbered with the dead; His crime entails on thee a load of woe, And sorrow heaps on thy devoted head. Torn from its breast, by shame or pride, No matter which — to hireling hands assigned; A parent’s tenderness, when thus denied, Can it be thought its nurse is overkind? Too many, like this infant may we see, Exposed, abandoned, helpless and forlorn; Till death, misfortune’s friend, has set them free, From a rude world, which gave them nought but scorn. Too many mothers — horrid to relate! Soon as their infants breathe the vital air, Deaf to their plaintive cries, their helpless state, Led on by shame, and driven by despair, Fell murderers to become — Here cease, my pen, And leave these wretched victims of despair; But oh! what punishments await the men, Who in such depths of misery plunge the fair.