TWENTY-ONE

· · · ·

ALI SHAMS

b. 1961–2007

With all due respect, you staying alive for me

was a lousy reason to live. I kept only a bit:

the rubber fish, a few chicken feathers,

your lips hardly moving when you spoke.

Victims die, that’s their main verb.

Also: how to love a man. I kept that too.

Bright silhouette, you were lovely

as the landscape curved past our

understanding—it was there to crack us

open, across. A curve: any straight line

broken at every point. Doomable

dad, hour of the world! I understand now

why you stayed and why you left.

But I did love you here, hour of the world.

· · · · ·

—from BOOKOFMARTYRS.docx by Cyrus Shams