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