Eye to the Glass

Antigone is one of Sophocles’s classic Greek tragedies, which begins in the context of the antecedent action where Oedipus’s sons have been slain at each other’s hands. Antigone is retold in the allegorical novel Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. While Antigone is set in the singular geographical context of the Ancient Greek city Thebes, Home Fire centers around British-Pakistani Pasha family, retelling Antigone in a global context. Indeed, the shifting, heterogeneous geo-political environment of Home Fire results in constant challenges brought to characters’ existing beliefs and values in settings of predominantly Western culture. The implications of shifting the setting and characters from the single locality of Thebes in Antigone to a global context of the allegorical retelling in Home Fire is the complication of the conflict between people’s pre-existing beliefs, values, and education. In the local context of Antigone, conflicts are rather binary, exemplified in the conflict between loyalties to divinity and loyalties to civil law. In Home Fire, characters are very much influenced by the values and beliefs they come across in their globalized environment. In the end, both Antigone and Home Fire offer commentaries on themes of loyalty to family, state, and religion; however, the extremities with which characters are either stagnant or changed in their beliefs are ultimately the crux of each novel’s tragedy.

In Antigone, the beliefs and values characters inherit from their local environment are fixed, resulting in the dichotomous conflict between divine law and civil law. Antigone criticizes Creon’s decision to prohibit Polynices’ burial, saying, “Your edict, King, was strong / But all your strength is weakness itself against / The immortal unrecorded laws of God.” She uses the polyptoton of “strong” and “strength” to undermine her artificial praise of his law, going on to paradoxically equate his “strength” to “weakness.” In doing so, Antigone emphasizes her disregard for Creon’s edict, characterizing her as faithful to her religion and sense of duty to her family. At the same time, this underscores the hierarchy of Antigone’s beliefs: God placed above the King, and divinity placed above civil law.

On the other hand, Creon is characterized as the antithesis to Antigone. After fielding criticisms of his decision, Creon takes on an incredulous tone in asking: 

“What? should they [the Gods] honour him with burial

As one who served them well, when he had come

To burn their pillared temples, to destroy

Their treasuries, to devastate their land

And overturn its laws?”

His sarcasm demonstrates his criticism of the validity of divine law dictating mortal affairs. Unlike Antigone, his values as King and for the patriarchal organizations of family and society result in his steadfast belief that civil law be placed over those of divinity or family loyalty. He says of Antigone, “This girl already / Had fully learned the art of insolence.” Antigone’s devout, unwavering filial loyalty is reduced to “insolence”, connotative of immature disrespect. This alludes to Ancient Greece’s education of men, especially those in power like Creon. It was an expectation that women be subservient to men, but Antigone diverges from this stereotype, evoking Creon’s distaste.

Ironically, however, Antigone falls into another stereotype of Ancient Greek society—that of the unmarried, young woman of high social status. Antigone is stubborn and headstrong, which Creon perceives as a threat to his position of power and control, claiming, “No man can rule a city uprightly / Who is not just in ruling his own household.” At the same time, this demonstrates how Ancient Greece’s societal education embeds within the characters of Antigone the basis of their beliefs and values: Antigone’s loyalty to divine law and willingness to disobey authority, and Creon’s loyalty to civil law and preoccupation with maintaining respect and control. As such, it is precisely the localization of Antigone to the single setting of Thebes which exacerbates the conflict between Antigone and Creon’s dichotomous beliefs and values, manifesting in the binary conflict between divine law and civil law.

On the other hand, characters in Home Fire face constant challenges to their beliefs and values as a result of their globalized environment. This conflict is highlighted in the first part of Home Fire, centering on Isma. Isma’s name is a paronomasia of Ismene, to illustrate how she is a recontextualized adaptation of Ismene from Antigone. As a British-Pakistani, Isma’s religious faith is symbolized in her wearing a “hijab.” However, for her loyalty to her state, she also suffers antagonization and humiliation on account of her Muslim religion. For instance, before boarding a flight, she is interrogated by security and leaves after “she thanked the woman whose thumbprints were on her underwear” from searching Isma’s luggage. Isma’s sardonic tone spotlights the discrimination she is subject to because of her personal beliefs, exemplified by the oxymoronic diction of a “stranger” having touched her “underwear,” an evidently personal item of clothing. The compromization of Isma’s beliefs is cemented in her move to America, an additional locality which highlights the global context of Home Fire and how it may bring about further conflicts. On a walk, Isma “tried to catch her reflection in the water, but it was too quick, nothing like the slow-moving water-ways to which she was accustomed.” Through water imagery, Isma’s ever-changing life in America is juxtaposed with a life of stagnancy in Britain. Moreover, that her own “reflection” is elusive to her symbolizes the way in which Isma loses a sense of her identity due to the precariousness of her beliefs in Home Fire’s global context. At the end of her part of the novel, Isma stops wearing her hijab for Eamonn, a boy she’s become infatuated with. After this, when she attempts to utter a prayer, she “couldn’t make them anything other than words in a foreign language.” The religion which she once found pride and solace in becomes “foreign,” suggestive of her growing dissociation with her earliest held beliefs and values. 

In addition to her religious beliefs, the globalized context of Home Fire also compromises Isma’s loyalties to her family. Isma recalls being told “what a good thing it was, in this climate” that Isma had reported Parvaiz to the British government for terrorism. After the death of Isma’s parents, she becomes the sole provider for her twin siblings Aneeka and Parvaiz. Nevertheless, she betrays a sibling she loves and raised to appear as a “good” citizen in the eyes of a country which sees her as a threat. The apposition “in this climate” emphasizes how it is the global context of a majority Anglo-Saxon Britain which brings about Isma’s betrayal of her values of family loyalty. 

Therefore, there is a significant contrast between the nature of conflicts in Antigone and Home Fire. In the local context of Thebes in Antigone, the conflict between divine law and civil law is binary and embedded in the beliefs of its characters. On the other hand, the global context of Home Fire, the conflict between loyalties to religion, state, and family results in characters often compromising their pre-existing beliefs and values, or abandoning them entirely. 

Nevertheless, both the extremity of characters’ beliefs, values, and education, whether in their constancy or indefiniteness, are the crux of each work’s tragedy. In Antigone, Creon’s obstinate belief in his own edict results in the tragedy of Antigone’s suicide, and the subsequent suicides of Creon’s only son and wife. Antigone declares in the first act that she is “not afraid of the danger; if it means death, / It will not be the worst of deaths — death without honor.” Her macabre diction foreshadows the tragic fate that befalls her, when she kills herself before she can be killed by Creon for breaking his law. It is Creon’s insistence that the authority of civil law “must be obeyed in all things, great or small, / Just and unjust alike” which pushes her to this end. The parallelism of his language, together with the antithetical descriptions, create a quality of aphorism to represent how Creon takes the power of civil law as wisdom and an accepted fact, overruling all else. Tiresias warns Creon that the gods will “make you pay / Their price,” an idiom for their punishment of Creon. In the end, Creon agonizes over Haemon’s death, who kills himself after finding out Antigone has died: “The slayer, the slain; a father, a son. / My own stubborn ways have borne bitter fruit.” The parallelism equates Creon to “the slayer” and Haemon to “the slain,” revealing Creon’s guilt in his belief that he has caused Haemon’s death because of his “stubborn ways.” The “bitter fruit” is a metaphor for the tragic ending which has befallen because of his own faults. Creon ultimately laments, “There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; / No wisdom but in submission to the gods.” The anadiplosis of “no wisdom” equates happiness to observing divine law. Without it, Creon’s life ended in tragedy, and therefore the theme of Antigone also becomes rather binary and one-sided: that divine law should be obeyed over anything else. 

In Home Fire, Eamonns’ beliefs and values change vastly from his initial desire to be his father’s son, resulting in the tragedy of deaths of him and Aneeka, Isma’s younger sister. First introduced in Isma’s part of the novel, Isma mocks Eamonn’s name: “An Irish spelling to disguise a Muslim name – ‘Ayan’ as ‘Eamonn’ so that people would think his father had integrated.” Eamonn’s name is also a paronomasia of Haemon from Antigone. But unlike Haemon, Eamonn is afflicted by the internal conflict over loyalty to the country he has “integrated” with, Britain, and the place where “his father” came from, Pakistan, as a result of the global context of Home Fire. Upon hearing Eamonn speak of his desire to be like his father, Isma notes that “for girls, becoming a woman was an inevitability; for boys, becoming men was an ambition.” The parallelism of this phrase highlights the contrast between the natural course of growing up in opposition to Eamonn’s, coming of age. Her diction of “ambition” connotes that Eamonn makes a purposeful dedication to become a man like his father, including his father’s forgoing of his Pakistani heritage and dissociation with the Muslim cultural minority in the United Kingdom. The tragic end to Eamonn’s internal conflict is foreshadowed by the symbol of a parachutist Isma sees before seeing Eamonn for the first time, a metaphor for Eamonn’s failure to live up to his father’s image. Isma likens the parachutist to Icarus, “hurtling down, his father, Daedalus, following too slowly to catch the vainglorious boy.” The allusion to the Greek myth, which is significant for the text’s Greek foundations, indicates that it is Eamonn’s rejection of his father’s beliefs and values which allows him to find newfound freedom; however, just as Icarus ignored his father’s warning and flew too close to the sun, Eamonn ignores his father’s warnings and falls in love with Aneeka, resulting in his tragic end. 

Aneeka is the catalyst for Eamonn’s shift in beliefs and values. After they sleep together for the first time, “he couldn’t help watching this woman, this stranger, prostrating herself to God in the room where she’d been down on her knees for a very different purpose just hours earlier.” While he previously held his father’s dissociation from Muslim religion, Eamonn becomes fascinated with Aneeka, who is devoutly religious. The visual imagery of “down on her knees” evokes both the image of her praying, but also of her fellating Eamonn, blurring the lines between the religion Eamonn rejected and the woman he is enamored with. When he finds out that Aneeka has manipulated him in an effort to repatriate her twin brother who had joined ISIS, Eamonn thinks of “the black-and-white flag, the British-accented men who stood beneath it and sliced men’s heads off their shoulders. And the media unit, filming it all.” The structure of the asyndetic listing of images is climactic, depicting Eamonn’s anagnorisis in realizing he was used by Aneeka. Nevertheless, he forgives Aneeka and stays by her side as she tries to retrieve her brother’s body from Syria when he is killed. In an end that is analogous to that of Icarus, Eamonn is embroiled in Aneeka’s conflict through their romance, leading to this death and the tragedy of Home Fire.  Ultimately, Antigone exemplifies the idea of unidimensional characters and conflict. Antigone and Creon are both steadfast in their loyalties to either divine law or civil law as a result of the local context of Antigone’s setting. Oppositely, Home Fire diverges from Antigone’s setting of a single cultural locality. Indeed, the title itself may suggest that tragedies can arise due to the global context of diverse loyalties centralized in one nation or “home”. Nevertheless, despite these differences, Sophocles and Shamsie both demonstrate how extremities in each of their characters’ beliefs and values led to the tragedies that befell them.

A continuation from “A Visit from Jay Deshpande”, July 16, 2022. My course professor kindly forwarded on my questions to Jay, who has answered in new spheres of insight.

Q: If I wanted to be a poet, are there any specific steps you’d recommend I take now in high school? In college? After college? Would you suggest having a fallback plan, since writing doesn’t always seem like a very pragmatic career choice?

The best thing for becoming a writer is and remains to read as deeply and broadly as possible; read things that seem unrelated, just following your curiosity wherever it goes. You never know what’s going to feed your poems. But if you’re reading consistently and writing as much as you can (without too much concern about whether it’s good or not), this will all sharpen your instincts and your tastes. 

The question of career is actually a different one. Writers support themselves through all kinds of careers. Some writers make their living by writing: publishing novels, or working as journalists, or being technical writers specializing in one field or another. Many other options. Lots of other writers support themselves by teaching, whether it’s teaching creative writing or academic writing or something else. But I also know writers who are doctors, lawyers, professional poker players, falconers, publishers, advertising execs, you name it. The real crux is about finding a way to build a life that makes room for your creativity; and then to reinvent that life over and over again. But sadly, writing in itself is not a pragmatic career choice… people usually have to find another means of financial support.

Q: Do you think that poets have some obligation to depict relevant political or social issues in their writing? In these cases, do you think that writing becomes more of an act of public service than personal exploration?

This is such a good q and there are lots of different opinions on it. If you want to get more of a sense for how different writers approach the question of politics and ethical responsibility—and very different views on it—I might suggest reading interviews with/essays by Ilya Kaminsky, Wallace Stevens, Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Solmaz Sharif, Adrienne Rich, sam sax, Monica Sok, Eavan Boland, Muriel Rukeyser. A million others, but these poets all have interesting perspectives on the question.

Q: How long does it usually take you to finish a poem, from when you first think of an idea to when you publish it?

There’s no clear rule or answer for how long a poem takes, for me and for most poets I know. Some poems have come off in 20 drafts; some happened basically whole and required very little editing. But it’s also hard to know if a poem is properly “done”; it never really tells you that. Sometimes it’s just about realizing that I can’t do any more with this poem now, or that my friends/colleagues who have read it feel satisfied with it, or that I’m just sick of it. Paul Valery: “A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” (!)

Q: Are there any books or authors you enjoyed reading when you were younger? Any you’ve read recently?

When I started out, I loved TS Eliot and Billy Collins—two very different voices, but ones who I adored and who brought me to the page. I also drew great inspiration (and continue to) from Rainer Maria Rilke, Wallace Stevens, Denis Johnson, Linda Gregg, Jack Gilbert, Seamus Heaney, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and John Ashbery. The list could go on forever! But when you find people you’re drawn to, read up on them and see who their comrades/contemporaries are, or who they published alongside. It can help expand your sense of a kind of network of poetic influences. 

Q: Do you believe there are ways to improve creativity? 

Improving creativity: this is an amazing question. I certainly think creativity is plastic: it’s not that some people have it and some people don’t (unless you’re using a very narrow definition of creativity, or referring to individuals with severe cognitive impairment). I do think that creativity is kind of like a muscle. And that’s why so much of becoming a poet, or strengthening your capacities as an artist, is less about improving and perfecting your poems and more about learning how to be a good companion to your own instincts, impulses, curiosities, passions, fears, etc. It’s learning to live alongside the part of yourself that gets super inspired all of a sudden, the “omg this is the best idea anyone’s ever had” feeling; and also the part of yourself that is a hypercritical editor, the “all your ideas are shit and shouldn’t be shared with the world” feeling. The fact is that we have to move through so many different self states within a life, within a mind. 

But here’s the thing, Sarah. Creativity is also inherent to our being in the world, as humans. It’s connected to making sense, making meaning of all that’s around us. It’s in how we use language, how we love, how we fear, all of it. And at its root, creativity is about play: play in the mind, play with others, playing make-believe and let’s-pretend. One very key element of honing and honoring one’s creativity is to make room for the inner child, and to return as regularly as possible to the parts of yourself that had wild and fun ideas and acted on them, without self-consciousness or pragmatism or any self-negating impulse. Play is, I think, the real reason we make art. So if you honor your capacity to play—even if it’s not making a poem—you’re doing a service to the creative impulse, in yourself and in the universe, in the muse, whatever you might call it.

I hope this helps. I’m wishing you all good things.

Best,

Jay

For Adam; Karen; and Ellen:

At the beginning of this course, I wrote in my writing sample that I hoped to produce poetry that was a better portrayal of some conscientiousness and maturity. I certainly believe the discussions we had, the poetry we read, and the feedback I received in this class have aided my growth in these respects. In our discussions, I consistently felt challenged to consider and evaluate my own points of view. There was something naturally inquisitive about speaking about what I would normally read in silence, explaining why specific parts of texts were meaningful, and realizing connections in my own life and the wider landscape of writing and the world. I enjoyed that, every week, there was always a new variety of poems I was able to draw points of questioning and learning from. Especially since the poems in one packet touched on the same topic, I was better able to pinpoint differences in form, techniques, and approach—and among these, the specifics I wanted to emulate in my own writing. Moreover, before this class, I had never been exposed to such a large volume of poetry in such a short amount of time. The experience of being inundated with poetry, having those hours in the week when every minute was saturated with nothing but the words on the page and my own thoughts, was new and delightful. Furthermore, throughout this course, the feedback I received was different from any other workshop I had been a part of before. I had never received such a wide variety of suggestions, ones that differed in perspective, opinion, and focus. It was refreshing to realize the critiques and concerns strangers may have as they read my poetry, and to have a sense of direction as I revised my works.

Among the many learnings I have taken away from our course, the one that has stayed with me is to let poetry function as a form of exploration. With my own poetry, I worry that I have let writing image after image, without including any real introspection, become a bad habit of mine. Originality in diction and imagery is what I try to emphasize in most of my poems; but now, I am more determined to use my writing as a vehicle for questioning and discovery. This course has also emphasized to me the importance of embracing weird, decidedly unaesthetic details. Previously, I had never associated over-sentimentality as being a flaw, but I have realized how avoiding it makes poetry evermore engaging, strange, and exciting. In this vein, I have attempted to experiment with discomforting, sometimes taboo, themes in my writing; however, in many ways, I fell short of treating these subjects with the entirety of their gravity and social significance. I have learned from feedback, and from reading other writing on these topics, the ways in which poets approach these topics with a purpose beyond simple depiction of a scene, and how this adds complexity and awareness to the poem itself. In the future, I hope to enhance the impact of my poetry past the portraits I create of people or scenes. Instead, with each poem, I will aim to end with something beyond what I am already aware of.

I feel like it is only right to end this reflection by mentioning that I have never, and likely never will again, be a part of a class quite like this one. When I first joined the Zoom and met Karen, and heard about her childhood and kids and grandkids, I felt moved in the sense that I could see the years of life I had ahead of me, and how the time I spent now would become memories of my future self. It led me to wonder what role my writing would play in creating and recording these memories, so has driven me to take inspiration from more of the little things around me, in addition to my imagination beyond personal experience. And in every class thereafter, this course has allowed me to pick apart and piece together the way I write, why I do, and all the reasons I love poetry. I will always be thankful to have been a part of this course, and am sure I will never forget it.

This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “In Roundabout Ways.”

In Roundabout Ways

Our reflections swim one over

the other, on the halos of moon

embossed in shattering glass,

blue sparks littering the scene,

something given and returned

beneath these violet canopies 

of sinking skies, of everything

being nothing all the same.

In Roundabout Ways

Our reflections swim one over

the other, on the halos of moon

floating on blue glass shattered 

and shifting on the silent street,

something given and returned

beneath these indigo canopies 

of sinking skies, of everything

here being nothing all the same.

This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “Ways of Rounding.”

Ways of Rounding

With time my grandmother’s teeth have 

been ground to split pills: marbles that 

clink softly in the hollows of her mouth,

filling with the whitish chimes of a 

living room clock leaning right. It turns 

out I have not grown nearly as much as she 

said I would. These words, too, tapering

off before her drying ears can swallow. 

We lie together on a war footing: civil 

and impending. My first thought as I 

stuttered to take her hand being you 

might not be able to do this one day

soon; until she says it is not good to lie

in one place for too long, and I forget who 

unlatched their fingers first, but we 

roll away like marbles nudged nearer 

to be repelled by their inertness, 

only the sweat sticky on my hand

to remember holding hers.

Ways of Rounding

She tells me she was born with every

thing except the peripheral. So from the

third month of nineteen forty two, she was

one of those spires of sunlight, icy mist

rising off the frozen pond, threading its

own fractures of footprints and frost. But

since then my grandmother’s teeth have 

been ground to split pills: marbles that 

clink softly in the hollows of her mouth,

filling with the whitish chimes of a living 

room clock tilting right on the wall. It turns 

out I have not grown nearly as much as she 

said I would; these words, too, tapering

off before her drying ears can swallow. On 

her bed in the room corner, my head bruises

on a rounded redwood frame, her thin hair 

creasing on the comforter. She wants to 

know something every minute: do I want

the lights on, or the fan; isn’t it too warm

for me in here, don’t I need a pillow, and 

after that question, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s 

seventeenth story ends asking —Isn’t there

someone kind enough to strangle me 

in my sleep? which makes me aware

that she has never asked me for such a

thing, just that her teeth are clicking in

the silence: marbles echoing from those

nights of her tucking the sheets up to my

ears, holding my hand until my eyes

stopped fluttering. Then she’d let go by

substituting her hand with another thing

to feel, a stuffed penguin’s wing or a

duckling’s beak, but sometimes I was only

pretending to asleep, and I wouldn’t let her

go, and she’d stay with me longer, staring at 

the white spots out the window and praying

for me to grow up well. From where I am

lying now, my toes can reach the window, 

so I pull one silver-lined curtain away 

with my foot, and it lets the white sky 

onto the ceiling, and the first thought when

I stutter to take her hand becomes you 

might not be able to do this one day

soon. So then my hands are curled in her

soft ones, and I remember there’s a love

of God for us, and a love for people you

are close to, and another I’m still trying

to remember when she says it is not good to lie

in one place for too long, and I forget who 

unlatched their fingers first, but we 

roll away like marbles nudged nearer to

be repelled by their symmetry, the two

of us fraught with not moving, only

the warmness rising from my hand

to remember holding hers.

This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “From the second we met in November.”

For the Time I Meet You Again in November

I tell my mother

because I think thinking of him

warming my breath and the backs of my knees

means I’m in love,

but not just love it’s escaping 

in place in the garden at twilight,

light from my bedroom spearing golden bars to the skyline

twenty-three centimeter feet soaking in chlorine

ex-friend’s shorts eroding against the poolside

berry-black eyes on police-blue lines on my thighs

looking up and seeing you,

hair cutting against the dark 

five feet apart you are still

like ivory pressed into a boy so now should we

stare or speak or could I

be honest and say the world should stay quiet

so I can hear myself breathe against your shirt

the sound of us sinking over the pool edge 

feeling you up

aurora underwater

and then I get up

walk back inside because I

have a test in four hours and a text I forgot

to open so I take my clothes off 

and put them back on

forget to look up until I’m at school

and it’s high school so I just have to love someone other than you

who’s tanner and taller and I reply to his text in person

leave and tell my friends I’m going to marry you

someday in a long dress with

baby’s breath in my hair and our photo will be

me bending my knees so you’re taller than me

us in love with the camera freezing us in

love this must be love

I am in love I love 

you I am in 

love with you and I ask my counselor,

because high school has counselors,

do you ever say the same words too many times that you

— and then I say never mind and replace the words with

I’m going to marry someone someday

and take out my lunch.

I am obsessed with you and everyone who’s not you it’s

the boy on the subway in the taxi at the checkout still in

high school then it’s my counselor’s 

husband sometimes too so I listen to the same songs on

the kitchen radio like this isn’t the twenty-first century

like I didn’t take a picture of you from the yearbook just

to delete it and the next time my mom asks what

is the plan, I’ll tell her it’s

to leave here

bring the dress that feels like perfume

grow some hips, save some cash

for garden party berries and

whatever else you’d like

at our wedding.

to write you

this poem

a thousand more times

and wake up

underwater

feeling you.

Revisions

• poem felt conversational
• elements about high school “counselor”
• liked conversational aspect
• feeling of high school, being obsessed with somebody that you talk about it over and over
• obsession spills over into other people
• even with a poem that’s chatty, each detail should be as catching as possible
• tension in the poem between having it be an imagistically precise/formally inventive love poem VS letting you inhabit the mind/relate to a voice that is younger
• cut all the parts that aren’t quite as sharp

From the second we met in November

I’ve told my mother we’d get married

the way I tell myself

there is a third lung that grows when I’m underwater and that it

pillows my chest from the pressure. In identical, 

infinite square minutes of night, I find myself

looking up and seeing you,

hair slitting the dark still

like ivory pressed into a boy

sinking over the poolside, 

feeling you up

aurora underwater

and then I get up

walk back inside because I

have a test in four hours and a text I forgot to send

and it’s high school so I just have to love someone other than you

who’s tanner and taller and I hold his finger up to the sky

fit his nail in the curve of the full moon and then

tell all my friends I’m going to marry you

someday when I’m older

with baby’s breath in my hair, and I’ll be

bending my knees so you’re taller than me

us in love with the camera when we said

we didn’t have to be our parents and then

grew up to be like them anyways and I ask my high school counselor,

do you ever say the same thing too many times that you

and then I say never mind and replace the words with

I’m going to marry someone someday.

I am obsessed with you and everyone who’s not you it’s

the boy on the subway still in

high school then it’s my counselor’s 

husband sometimes too so I listen to the same songs on

the kitchen radio like the music isn’t spent once I 

hear it, like I don’t know teenage girls only bite

off what they can chew and then spit out again, do I 

really not know? Sometimes I like to think I am holding

your unbroken neck, your fingertips on Chopin keys

and a green cotton shirt and silver-lining teeth so the

next time my mom asks what

is the plan, I’ll tell her it’s

to leave here

bring the dress that feels like perfume

grow some hips, save some coins

for garden party berries and

whatever else you’d like

at our wedding.

to write you

this poem

a thousand more times

and wake up

underwater

feeling you

This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “On Emerging from Lytle Tunnel.”

This summer

This summer, the pool overflows & the tree loses

its limbs. The garden gathers a glut

of dragonflies & freesias. Floodwater staining

all the walls black. 

With the summer light fading,

you floor it down the highway while I bend 

against the passenger window, a marionette 

strung by streetlights, assembled from the sidewalk

 

winding every way south. I’m in love

this summer: with you and the breeze 

spinning me ‘round in the passenger seat. With the boy I 

chipped my teeth on and the light sifting over the dash

and the sky sleeping gently and the stop sign so red 

it could only be this summer at sunset.

On Emerging From Lytle Tunnel

In July, the pool overflows & the tree loses

its limbs. the garden gathering a glut 

of dragonflies & freesias. floodwater staining

the asphalt all black. With the summer light fading, 

we chase shooting stars in the last 

quarter of the highway. the sky burning

shade of tongues running over teeth. the route 

winding every way south. Highway winds spin me ‘round 

in the passenger seat, but I am a marionette

strung by streetlights from home:

this wind of running off mangles 

me into a refrigerator-wide knot. A straw

is bitten and soaking in the styrofoam

melting on the cupholder. my legs are sunburnt and

peeling back fresh flesh. I smile in a gradient:

eggshell to asylum white from the boy I 

chipped my teeth on. In the flash of dark, we can only

rush to the other end: like your hand on my

lower thigh; mine running races in a circle

on the peach bone of my ankle, shadows 

convalescencing into us when you’re too

tired to drive, staining our skin the perfect

shade of night. Headlight glow swims over reflections

of us on the dash. fingertip tornadoes chasing ripples

down the center of your cup. and your eyes watch the road 

black and white: snow on the interstate and tar 

licking the other end of your cigarette. you say

the smoking might kill you first, so I equalize this by hanging

my head out the window, with an under

the skirt view of the sky,

undulating shades of blue: reminding me

we’re actually spinning as we’re speeding

in the interspatial, galactic sense; in the

atomic & minute sense, so it makes 

sense for the sky to be choking

this silent. for the stop sign

to be so red. for you to

smile at me so honestly

i forget to look back

at what I’m leaving behind.

This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “Motherland.”

Motherland

Mother lies belly up in the shallows, 

hair of sea foam whispering around her limbs 

of islands and thinning streams. The lines of her jaw,

her waist, her feet, have grown a glut of green

trees on mountainsides. I don’t see them from here. 

This city is buried in her, entombed in the hills

of her flesh. Her skin withers slowly, like paper browning

in bathwater. Skyscrapers built in armor shield us

from the sun crawling through. We live needled by dog days 

and skin-folding heat. I lived with my great-grandmother

who is dead now. I don’t know her name, but I remember

her backlit by summer light, white wisps falling over eyes, 

a glimmer of sweat or a tear as she held my hand. Other women

we pay to be mothers. They sing lullabies with their eyes held

shut, sat down in a coolness that is stinging. In the name of hope,

a man who has killed becomes our president. The next time,

they vote for a man who would kill whomever. Man of his word, 

he promised, and for once he didn’t lie. We play his game

all the time. The game is this or that. The game is dog barks

or gunshots. Did the storm shower your morning glories

or leave a crater yawning in your roof? Are you the one at the red light

or the child holding flowers outside your window? He is begging

for a coin and barefoot on the highway. His hands 

are too dirty to take something from. Yours are bloodier

than you can bear. It is suddenly too cold in here, 

so you roll down the window once the light turns green.

We turn to Mother in our grief, pry her open

searching for warmth. Ice floats in her belly from drinks 

we downed by hotel pools, apartment windows

in view of every sunset bleeding yellow. We bring her down

like a sand castle crumbling. We step on someone’s back

and swoon over the green past the city smog. 

Mother promises she’ll be born again.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe her.

Revisions

• clarify cultural setting
• reorganize images and stanzas
• overload of political content is disorienting

Contrition for Motherland

for the Philippines

Mother lies awake in the shallows, 

hair of sea foam whispering around her 

limbs of islands and thinning streams. The coasts of her figure 

grow a glut of green on every mountainside, out of sight 

from the capital buried in her 

left lung; entombed in the tessellation

of her highway skeleton. 

She is withering slowly, like 

Palawan blossoms eclipsed in the flood. It is hard

to imagine her furled upon herself, so we rest easy

pretending she is not. The sun tramples the equator. We live 

bowed to the crucifix and her skin-

folding heat with a maid who puts a stranger to bed.

Wakes up to make breakfast, backlit 

by a vacancy, black wisps matted in beads of salt

-water on her face. She sings the lullabies with her eyes held shut;

locks herself in a coolness that is stinging 

in the name of acquiescence. In the name of hope, murderers are just

martyrs mired in politics. Man of his word, Rody swore, and 

for once, he did not lie. He starts the game

tossing bullets like dice. Pushes someone out of a helicopter.

Massacres the city next door. When the dice rolls to a

 

stop, has the storm showered your morning glories

or left a chasm through the roof? Are you the one at the red light

or the child at the window, holding up the petaled garland, begging

for a coin and barefoot on the highway. His hands 

are too dirty to take something from; yours are bloodier

than you can bear. It has grown too cold 

for bare skin, so you roll down the window when the 

light blips to green. With hot

air blowing wasps off the roof, we pry Mother open 

searching for warmth

 

to find her clogged with our gluttony. There is ice afloat in her 

belly from drinks at hotel pools, highrise

windows in view of pus rolling down the dome 

of sunset bleeding yellow. Now that she is open, we bring her down

like a tapestry tearing

and mangled. We step on someone’s back

to swoon over seascape moving in 

past the city smog. You and I too busy 

blowing bubbles in the flooded pool 

to wonder if they can swim.

This summer, I am keeping a collective of my writing, from drafts through revisions to the version I am willing to let live. This post is for the poem “Baby.”

Trigger warning: domestic violence

baby
she has a bruise on each thigh and i have rings on both hands. i kiss her bluish skin and she blushes pink, peachy fresh. her face fits in my palm like the apples i slice into petals and feed her for breakfast. at dusk she takes my hand and leads me to the garden. she says i wantsomething new, and i take her face in one hand and slam it into the ivy wall. baby, baby, and i throw her to the ground and she’s holding onto my ankle with two little hands wrinkling at each wrist. we’re brand new, baby, i promise her. her face is flushed and she whimpers. the sky bleeds from her hairline off the tip of her nose. i take her head in my hands and her wide eyes are perfect globes. in her left iris i see a trail of ants circling in the grass. i hold her underwater and they drown on the bathtub floor. her skin is white and blue through the film of dirt. the water rises horizons over her skin and forms small islands on her breasts and knees. she fits in a hand towel and furls into my arms. brand new, baby. but her eyes are just as wide. i kiss them closed and love her again. see, baby? good as new.

Revision

• should not sensationalize the violence
• eeriness comes through
• clarify characterization of the female character

Baby
She is blue on each thigh and I’m bruised on each hand. I kiss her whitish skin and she blushes, pink-skinned. Her whole face fits in my palms. Hair threading curtains on her eyes. I part them for comfort, to look at something clear. Sometimes I hold her head while she sleeps. I hold her like the apples I skin, slice into petals, feed her for breakfast. Every time, she swallows the fruit without really chewing. One night at dusk, she leads me to the garden. She wants something new, so I take her face in one hand and slam it into the ivy wall. Baby, baby, and I throw her to the ground. She holds onto my ankle like it keeps her from falling. Each of her knuckles an apple inside out. Everything inside her rushing to the surface. We’re brand new, baby, I promise her. Her face is flushed. Her mouth hangs on a hinge. The sky bleeds from her hairline off the tip of her nose. It dampens the curtains dark, and I take her head in my hands to stare through them. I see her eyes are perfect globes. In her left iris I see a trail of ants circling in the grass. I hold her underwater and watch them wash down the bathtub drain. Her skin white and blue through the film of dirt. Her breath shallow like light hesitating at dawn. The water rising horizons over her breasts, forming islands on her knees. I dry her with a hand towel and she melts into my chest. Brand new, baby. But her eyes are watered with something dim. I kiss them closed and love her again. See, baby? but she doesn’t. Good as new, and she becomes it.