MIRACLES OF PROFIT
Someone once told me they built these fences
on accident—
rocks deposited by a slow moving
mammoth whose knees
grace town greens now, plucked from the earth.
Farmers placed them at the far edge of the field
to avoid contamination with other forms of labor:
this, not that. It goes on.
In the New England woods you will find these
linear landfills: remnants of the first phase
of the settler colonial project
farms abandoned for sheep
serial thinking
sheep for cows
cows for the promise of more land
west
out
a path, clearing.
You speak of heartbreak here,
memory that formal feeling pulled
from volcano depths—
the brave one toeing the edge of the ghetto
dynamite hidden under nailbeds.
I’m pulling the marrow from a bone,
my fingers tormented by a
silvering dove, mourning at the ledge—
The beloved sits at the window
reading of dolphin skins stretched purple to build
a desolate and impractical ark,
god promising to fill the space between the two cherubims’ wings.
It is winter and god is far from here,
though perhaps right over there
holding between mountain peaks
in the middle distance.
What of the man carrying his son’s remains
in two plastic bags after the camera shuts off?
How for the sun to rise over Gaza?
What for bread be made of animal feed?
How for anyone to look away?
But of the witness beating
by the winnowing creek
for the traipsing footsteps
by the streets filled
concrete crumbling under the dry sun
accidental fences in moss
desecrated boundary wall
the black and bottomless chasm of
a Coke ad
it’s the real thing.
The olive trees burning,
not by afterthought or accident
but a project bent on destruction.
You unfold the alphabet into your lap:
here the river and here the sea
and here a Palestine free of occupation
of horrors—
markets and bakeries
children baking layers of knufeh, just
breadcrumbs and cream, browning in the oven.
A middle distance sets it
callousness too
like the moon
rising
again and again
over the city
with the reddened sky
no ochre
and the birds
they are returning
how silly was I to forget
INFINITY QUILT
Weaving sets the timekeeper’s bedroom askew,
Twenty-four clocks, one for each setting, click on the wall—
Does god measure time?
Or just infinity?
Each unit stretching out of itself
Then absorbing its tendon: each still spindle
makes its way to an impossible edge
I wake in a postcard bed, feet tucked under your knees—
Counting the stamp’s perforated fingers
a window spilling out of itself.
Nighttime: the room hovers
Daybreak: the sun
cracks the window’s height
Weaving splits the timekeeper’s bedroom—
Twenty-four clocks sutured to the drywall
There are no bosses in the quilt
but there are in this building
off to view the merchandise
May you sit at the beach
counting clouds on the far horizon
trading feet rustling for sparrows hopping, waves bodying
From here to there, twelve cubits
A dinosaur forcing its way out of the sky
BHERETI
The star bar is full of stars
heavenly and gracing
under a full moon
Each door opens into another one
then the rooms face each other:
we must have a mind of calendars to find the one we’ve been looking for.
One after another, the stars fall into dates—
punishment, then release.
Lies told to protect someone from something.
Euphoria and suffer and ferret
all come from the same root: bhereti
I breathe it into bedtime
bhe
re
tii
bher et i
the light is on low
cars sound like water
in the failing starlight I carve it
Then flying above California,
a slowly developing edge
The mountains as enclosure
the hills as more enclosure
A coloring book, so blue and flowered,
open on the table. Tea beside it.
The moon opens, and with it, a flower grows—
the shape of the sweater you wore at twilight
graying sky, stuck at its pre-darkening
A net
holding a net
is another net
-
Ayaz O. Muratoglu is a poet, essayist, and translator living in Brooklyn, New York. Work can be found in the Poetry Project Newsletter, Critical Flame, moero, Hot Pink Mag, and elsewhere. They were born on a Tuesday in April.
