The Proper Purgation Ÿ

Peace to a grove of figs. Peace to this darkness.Peace to a shell that hid its blood in wet sleep. Peace to this ruinFrom Thank You Imru Ul-QaisBy Saadi Yousef, tr by Khaled Mattawa

Muscles and vessels barbed

veins twist names mix wire with

home, home wraps around

heart, heart grows a shell in hopes that

we do not learn again what

is happening and what is happening to

whom trying to mark one, two to

declare our innocence and our

absence our silence it’s the only way to

live some think you see writhing /

writing hurts so much, the tearing so

insistent and monsoons flood in

drown the lobes that move each

action to emotion and if we could only

control eyes and ears and elements that

rake the skin with wire,

the boils swelling inside

the underarm between the toes lining

the mouth holding the unspeakable until

nothing until the silence leaks until

the temporal levees crash the walls until

the certain magnitude unravels the

ventricles arteries aorta bypass

grief bypass horror bypass saying

it’s unspeakable because it is not

the proper purgation rhythm, 'harmony' and

song and we are just in time bypass

the humidity of history and its recognizable

scars we inflict repeatedly transplantation in-

operable these words are not enough are

not coming as quickly as tragedies do

our language is not our language instead

invented by the murder of the heart, of

hearts ruptured by magnitude coming

too fast and the words hold fire hanging

in wait and what we want to say is not

that this is our world smothered by every

moment a massacre seen as bodies and not

brothers seen as battlefields and not

homes seen as acts of god and not the god-

less I reach for the syllables to put together

the artistic ornament that moves us to Act

Three to where we say peace peace peace to

this ruin a slight unraveling tongue to teeth fingers on

paper peace to this ruin makes it easier

to breathe and live on.