The Math of Life

After Googoosh’s “Talagh”

The lady on the escape, planning her escape, feeling
the heat on her fire landscape, aware of death’s
date, nothing but skin, her turf, her pain
& the visibility rolls off her back, unaffected by shame. The
phone on the counter rings but my line is busy, a brief moment
of fear repeats every night, that is the math of
life. I haven’t checked my work but when the
input is creation, the output is always destruction.
She doesn’t care, I wish I could have that, just that, the math of
life is hes keredn mergu, feeling death. The
lady smiles & everything is disco, the dollar menu & the mountain.
I’m over here afraid & she’s over there with
rolls of fat, with picked pimples, stretch marks. The
phone pings again & again but I’m too angry
to answer, I don’t have any only questions like buoghez, a lump
made of scribbled schemes rolled into a ball in
playful youth, ingested & devoured before I was told my
body wasn’t made to digest dreams. The ball clings to my throat,
buoghez, unable to be extracted & unable to be broken
down. This isn’t made for me, only processed thoughts &
things like cheap processed food, the saliva dripping
kind. The lady can clear her throat, can live in time from
morning to night without fright, others take notice, the
sight gives them feelings of upset. The sun sets on this outsider’s
skin, her time runs differently than mine & that’s my pain,
my problem. I’m afraid of being gherbet, outside, poor without
romance, left alone in a dark place, my voice
uncared-for, no one wears watches anymore. We live in ignorance, a
fear of due dates & jetlag. We rather scream
in surprise. Keshed, taken while mowing the lawn, feeling death is
the math of life, pull it from time or you will be drawn.

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My River Delta

The bathroom door is sealed shut
and I pour hot water on my wrists,
sterilizing my skin, a Berlin wall.

Tracing a river of blue
until like the Nile it runs red.
Eyebrow scissors are very versatile.

My river delta, I have two.
Oil buried under a layer of skin, an acre.
An ache, I must unearth the well.

The guests marvel at my skin
and congratulate my parents on my whiteness.
They tell me I’m passing, I’m beautiful.

They tell me not to worry about my accent,
it’s fading. The guests drink their tea black
with one sugar cube, stating safety in hiding.

My river delta, I have two.
Please don’t invade, I tow horizontally
I build a dam—the rush the vitality.

Dehydrated, I flood my wrists,
marking my mistakes with a twinge.
Adding graffiti to my wall until it collapses.

The Nile runs red, an artificial miracle.
A knock—I’m revealing myself. I flush
the toilet and cover up, a pyrite rush.

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Nina in Raspberry

After Nina Simone’s Lilac Wine

19th & 5th. I was watchful & diligent because I
left my phone & my coat in the corner of the gallery, lost
sight of you after all these years, forgot myself
& remembered chorus in middle school on
Monday afternoons. Afterhours, we’d bike to a
7/11 & share an American Spirit trying to be oh so cool.
19th & 5th with a raspberry blouse, two damp
boys on my coat & you were gone, damn. That night
when sleep escaped me, reminded of your touch, I
wondered why we didn’t hook up. You gave
me soft impressions like throwing myself
into the ocean of an impressionist painting hung in
a well-known museum that people like to namedrop. I was that
wanderer on a rock in a romantic frame, my gaze was rosy & misty.
My vocab consisted of imitation, blame autocorrect in light
of any inconsistencies, any lack of reality but I was
trying to be aloof on purpose. You hypnotized
me with that raspberry record from the thrift shop by
Nina Simone, she’s faint on the cover, a
gift from the date we didn’t call a date, strange
& faint confused by youth, brushes of impressions & delight
until you said goodbye, anti-climatic under
a starry night. Here you were, refusing the leading role, a
consumer of the trendy spots like The Sultan Room or The Lilac
& you breezed through my wreckage like a bird through a tree.

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