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From "Seven Deadly Sins"
- Callaloo
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 28, Number 3, Summer 2005
- pp. 705-706
- 10.1353/cal.2005.0126
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Callaloo 28.3 (2005) 705-706
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from "Seven Deadly Sins"
Yusef Komunyakaa
SLOTH
If you're one of the seven
Downfalls, up in your kingdom
Of mulberry leaves, there are men
Betting you aren't worth a bullet,
That your skin won't tan into a good
Wallet. As if drugged in the womb
& limboed in a honeyed languor,
By the time you open your eyes
A thousand species have lived
& died. Born on a Sunday
Morning, with old-world algae
In your long hair, a goodness
Disguised your two-toed claws
Bright as flensing knives. In this
Upside-down haven, you're reincarnated
As a fallen angel trying to go home.
ENVY
Icarus imitated the golden plover,
Drawn toward a blue folly
Above, looping through echoes
Of a boy's prankish laughter, [End Page 705]
Through an airy labyrinth
Of conjecture. A lifetime
Ahead of Daedalus, with noon sun
In his eyes, he outflew the bird's
Equilibrium, wondering how this
Small creature of doubt braved
The briny trade winds. Surely,
In a fanfare of uneclipsed wings
Driven by dash & breathless style,
He could outdo the plover's soars
& dares. But he couldn't stop
Counting feathers against salty sky.
First appeared in Poetry, October 1999.
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