Kaveh Akbar

In Shia Islam, the Twelfth Imam is said to have disappeared in the ninth century. It’s believed his return at the end of the world will deliver order from the chaos. no one ever brings up the wages of virtue        the cost of avoiding that which you were built to do some men actually love their enemies remind me to tell you about them when you arrive and when will that be again? I’ve already spiced the duck and hidden the sherry even grain has genes that say drink this or bend there so much like our own I am rubbing yogurt through my hair getting ready for your return I read old mail from my bababazorg the Farsi like tea leaves or exotic blades years ago he melted into the tautness of earth like a pad of butter on turtle meat the birch curled its tongue I was full of credible fears today I’m full of olives and smoke sucking a fat red cigar and ashing on the good lace I’m comfy as a snake sleeping in a silk shoe though my glasses are foggy or maybe I just got perfume in my eye either way I’ll recognize you by your heartbeat you’ll recognize me by the green bird in my shirt pocket if you hurry I’ll let you hold her her flightlessness will mean nothing in fact my whole house has been cleansed entirely of symbols a strange call came from the west and I understood it in this new language I burnt away my candles and woke the sleeping spider resting his fangs against my hand there will be nothing here to distract you from your work just some old pears browning in the kitchen and a glass vase of pink roses humming their little songs

there are fat wet vines creeping into my house through the pipes and through the walls gentle as blue flames they curl into my living there is ice in my attic sugar on my tile I am present and useless like a nose torn from a face and set in a bowl when I saw God I used the wrong pronouns God bricked up my mouthhole his fists were white as gold there were roaches in my beard now I live like a widow every day a heave of knitting patterns and sex toys my family speaks of me with such pride noonesh to roghane they say his bread is in oil I thank them for that and for their chromosomes most of which have been lovely I am lovely too my body is hard and choked with juice like a plastic throat stuffed with real grapes my turn-ons include Ovid and fake leather my turn- offs have all been ushered into the base- ment I’ll drink to them and to any victory the vines are all growing toward the foot of my bed I am waiting for them to come under the covers I am the only person still in this house there is no one here to look away

bear with me      it wasn’t long ago I was brainless lazily pulling fireflies into my teeth       chewing them into pure light       so much of me then was nothing I could have fit into a sugar cube      my body burned like a barnful of feathers        nothing was on fire but fire was on everything       the wild mustard the rotting porch chair         a box of birth records        eventually even scorched earth goes green       though beneath it the dead might still luxuriate in their rage     my ancestor was a dervish saint     said to control a thick river of dark milk under his town        his people believed he could have spared them a drought       they ripped him to pieces like eagles tearing apart a snake    immediately they were filled with remorse       instead of burying him        they buried a bag of goat bones and azalea      my hair still carries that scent my eyes      black milk and a snake’s flicking tongue does this confuse you       there are so many ways to be deceived a butcher’s thumb pressed into the scale       a strange blue dress in a bathtub    the slowly lengthening night      I apologize I never aimed at eloquence      I told my mother I wouldn’t live through the year       then waited for a disaster      sitting cheerfully on cinder blocks pulled from a drained pond      tossing peanuts to squirrels     this is not the story she tells     hers filled with happy myths       fizzy pistons and plummy ghosts it’s true I suppose       you grow to love the creatures you create some of them come out with pupils swirling       others with teeth

in Fort Wayne I drank the seniors Old Milwaukee Old Crow         in Indianapolis I stopped         now I regret every drink I never took        all around          coffee grounds and eggshells      this sweating         a mouthful of  lime        as a boy I stole a mint green bra from a laundromat       I took it home to try on while my parents slept       filled its cups with the smallest turnips in our pantry       the underwire grew into me like a strangler fig       my blood roiled then as now       back on earth frogspit is dripping down wild aloe spikes       salmon are bullying their way upstream       there is a pond I leapt into once with a lonely blonde boy       when we scampered out one of us was in love      I could not be held responsible for desire       he could not be held at all     I wonder where he is now       if he looked up he might see me      a sparkling     I always hoped that when I died I would know why        my brother will be so sad      he will tell his daughter I was better than I was     he will leave out my crueldrunk nights       the wet mattresses      my driving alone into cornfields unsure whether I’d drive out       I wish he were here now        he could be here      this cave is big enough for everyone        look at all the diamonds

It’s common to live properly, to pretend you don’t feel heat or grief: wave nightly at Miss Fugue and Mister Goggles before diving into your nightcap, before reading yourself a bedtime story or watching your beloved sink to the bottom of a lake and noting his absence in your log. The next day you drop his clothes off at Goodwill like a sack of mail from a warplane then hobble back to your hovel like a knight moving only in L s. It is comfortable to be alive this way, especially now, but it makes you so vulnerable to shock — you ignore the mortgage and find a falconer’s glove in your yard, whole hand still inside. Or you arrive home after a long day to discover your children have grown suddenly hideous and unlovable. What I’m trying to say is I think it’s okay to accelerate around corners, to grunt back at the mailman and swallow all your laundry quarters. So much of everything is dumb baffle: water puts out fire, my diseases can become your diseases, and two hounds will fight over a feather because feathers are strange. All I want is to finally take off my cowboy hat and show you my jeweled horns. If we slow dance I will ask you not to tug on them but secretly I will want that very much.

gravity accounts for the distance between weight and mass it can also mean alarming importance human bones are so full of gravity it’s hard for us to swim I lost my glasses chasing a branch in the ocean which is far too deep to dredge      sometimes I imagine the sea’s made of actual tears this would explain the salt      think of all the disconsolate toddlers weeping right now into the earth the tears must go somewhere      it’s important to consider everything to name what we’re able      oceans give us rain but we don’t call rain ocean knot a dozen rats together by the tail and you’ve got a roi de rats which is harder than rain to hear in the night and far less welcome       who mourns a rat king frustrated chthonic always the biter never the bitten they give us the evil we need to stay moored to good still I would break any promise to avoid finding one       O Terrible God of the Mechanical Age I am your favorite pilgrim yet even I am finding it impossible to speak to you now without asking for protection

How long can you speak. Without inhaling. How long. Can you inhale without. Bursting apart. History is wagging. Its ass at us. Twirling in its silver. Cape. I want to kiss. Your scalp. I want you to kiss. My friends. Can you see the wet. Azalea quivering. On its vine. Its ripening. Dread. If it never rained again. I would still wear. My coat. Still wrap. My socks in plastic. Doing. One thing is a way. Of not doing everything else. Today I answer only. To my war name. Wise. Salt. I can make. A stone float off into. The sky. I can make. A whole family. Disappear. I know. So many people. Have been awful to you. I’ve given each one. A number. When you’re ready. I will ask you to draw me. Their hands.

It is pretty to be sweet and full of pardon like a flower perfuming the hands that shred it, but all piety leads to a single point: the same paradise where dead lab rats go. If you live small you’ll be resurrected with the small, a whole planet of minor gods simpering in the weeds. I don’t know anyone who would kill anyone for me. As boys my brother and I would play love, me drawing stars on the soles of his feet, him tickling my back. Then we’d play harm, him cataloging my sins to the air, me throwing him into furniture. The algorithms for living have always been delicious and hollow, like a beetle husk in a spider’s paw. Hafez said fear is the cheapest room in a house, that we ought to live in better conditions. I would happily trade all my knowing for plusher carpet, higher ceilings. Some nights I force my brain to dream me Persian by listening to old home movies as I fall asleep. In the mornings I open my eyes and spoil the séance. Am I forfeiting my mystique? All bodies become sicker bodies. This is a kind of object permanence, a curse bent around our scalps resembling grace only at the tattered edges. It’s so unsettling to feel anything but good. I wish I was only as cruel as the first time I noticed I was cruel, waving my tiny shadow over a pond to scare the copper minnows. Rockabye, now I lay me down, et cetera. The world is what accumulates — the mouth full of meat, the earth full of meat. My grandfather taught his parrot the ninety-nine holy names of God. Al-Muzil: The Humiliator. Al-Waarith: The Heir. Once, after my grandfather had been dead for a year, I woke from a dream (I was a sultan guzzling flies from a crystal boot) with his walking cane deep in my mouth. I kept sucking until I fell back asleep. There are only two bones in the throat, and that’s if you count the clavicle. This seems unsafe, overdelicate, like I ought to ask for a third. As if anyone living would offer. Corporeal friends are spiritual enemies

Holy father I can’t pretend I’m not afraid to see you again but I’ll say that when the time comes I believe my courage will expand like a sponge cowboy in water. My earth- father was far braver than me — coming to America he knew no English save Rolling Stones lyrics and how to say thanks God