If a man lived forever he would outlive Hope. - Oppen
Everything claims to be essential until proven otherwise––suck the hue from an iris and it'll watch you the whole time. How many years did you
misplace? And still somehow here you are, alive as a garden pest. Tweak your laugh. Tweak your sex. Grow your fingernails into long fishhooks. You can make an entire habitat
of was. At least then you'll have your party hat. At least then you'll have your balcony heap of body parts. We know fear mimics desire the way satin bowerbirds
mimic love, desperately presenting their mates with twiggy rings. It seems almost too strange a symmetry, like a baby drawing a row of perfect circles
across a wall. Remember, there but for the crippling fear of God go thee. Here's how to earn your veil: wake up, soap your toes, withstand the day long enough
to warrant sleep. There is no lesson in this, no triumphant hymn at the end–– only the great gurgling lake of gasoline and row after row of No Smoking signs.
209 The Paris-American
Kaveh Akbar's poems are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, Tin House, and elsewhere. His debut collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, will be published by Alice James Books in September 2017.