Poem of the Day
1981
By Asiya Wadud
in a world the orange sun resets
in a world the orange sun resets
Then one day the gray rags vanish
and the sweet wind rattles her sash.
Her secrets bloom hot. I’m wild for everything.
Nasturtium surplus.
Water curls and lilies,
lily water. Vermilion and orange
I AM MY FATHER’S ONLY UNBORN DAUGHTER.
I gave birth to my mother and am responsible for her death.
Someone who believes that at least one part of her
He stayed up late, staved off sleep, wandered, drank,
as if sleep were a kind of devouring,
as if it would masticate and spit him out at dawn
Cézanne has placed a surly easel
in what is still not there.
He feels the geology of absence,
Zeuxis painted grapes so real
that birds came down
to peck, but Parrhasius painted
We all came down with it
in the seventeenth century, back
when it was still possible
to die.
She was only a woman, and no more
than his latest wife who was commanded
not to come before him without the grant
Of course it was animus projection
or neurosis or even a psychotic
episode. It was codependence and
Once more
The rain coerces memory,
And shadows cast upon the door