How to Sell a Child Door to Door
Page 17 · Full poem
for Karu and Skin, my paper children
tell them this child has no parent
and can only bring joy
to its new home
bring light and promise
into the room
as it silently sits
in their hands
even as the world burns
outside the window
tell them everything
they want to hear
that might make them smile
anything just to get
this child’s little foot
in the door
do not bat an eyelid
should the child
gasp at fragments
of moth wings
by the kettle
no one invites sorrow
into their lives
These Days Every Time It Rains My Mother Trembles
Page 86 · Full poem
after listening to Djivan Gasparyan’s “I Will Not Be Sad in This World”
I speak to my mother on the other side of the world, and wonder
will she see my eyes again one day? How do I convince her
not to fear the rising waters, my voice trailing on copper?
Be calm, I tell her. She takes nothing but family albums upstairs. No one
sad or afraid in those photos, no one in any frame I can remember is alone.
In minutes the broken marble floor becomes a riverbed. A quickening,
this grip suddenly gone loose. My sister takes her up. Then a raging
world thrashes about. The receiver I hold fills with droning.