Grace, and: Immortality, and: Correspondence, and: HIV Needs Assessment, and: Scariest Movie, and: Heel

Grace

– Agha Shahid Ali, 1949–2001

I suppose it's only human
    nature to use trade jargon
        to signify one's membership

in the guild, possession
    of the arcane and potent
        lore of the few, the elect –

doesn't the alchemist have
    his azoth, the bishop his ambo,
        his ciborium – thus the physician

masks the bitter draught
    of diagnosis and prognosis
        within an effusion of words

so sweet in their sonic grace
    when intoned slowly enough,
        slow as an agonal breath, long

words of ancient provenance
    that bespeak the toga, the oracle,
        the goddess, achingly beautiful

words, ewers into which are poured
    long vowels and multiple syllables,
        like leukopenia, septicemia, glioblastoma.

Immortality

Gatling and Colt,
Mauser and Lüger,
Kalashnikov, Uzi –

you men of invention
live on in the hammer
and the grip, muzzle

and buttstock, bluing,
fire, recoil – wherever
you are blood pools,

wound and clot
flashing the code,
your family name

shattering bone.

Correspondence

if you see my other son,
cain, son of man,
tell him that i

– Dan Pagis, "Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car"

In the Hebrew of the Bible
and of today I understand

the di-syllabic word adam
is also the word for man

so in the Arabic of the Koran
and of today must it not be

true that two like syllables
mean the same two things –

Adam, man – and don't bin
and ben both mean son of

HIV Needs Assessment

Everywhere the faces, hair, limbs
    are coal, obsidian, flawless black
        sapphire, thus the rare mzungu*

like me stands out the way
    those few white moths once did
        on industrial London's sooted trees.

A month fluttering The Warm Heart
    of Africa's long length on this Needs
        Assessment. We've found the needs

many. But let us not talk of that,
    as the people do not. Focus instead
        on the vivid oleander & limpid sky

that domes the arid volcanic hills,
    its lapis mirrored in the uniforms
        of the file of schoolgirls who stride

the side of the road. And when the talk,
    matter-of-fact, beyond resigned, bears
        left at the roundabout, glances upon

a cousin's funeral attended yesterday,
    the two added children your colleague
        from Lilongwe is now raising alone,

funeral venues for this weekend, just
    sit there as the Project Vehicle propels
        you onward to the next Site, past

the lone ads for toothpaste
    & for study opportunity abroad,
        & the many for caskets ("lightweight,

can be carried by one"), & say nothing.

Scariest Movie

Growing up, the scariest movie
I ever saw was Invisible Monster.
This guy in a dark trenchcoat
and dark hat carried the monster
with him wherever he went,
in a hard-sided, snap-lock suitcase.
Every so often, to the dysphonic
strains of violins, he'd crack it open,
to give us a hint of its mighty force.
Hounds howled, lamp-posts toppled,
power lines hissed, we kids cowered
in the balcony. It was clear
there'd be no end to the havoc
should he open his suitcase wide.
Each night the unseen drove me
to the middle of my parents' bed,
twenty-three nights straight.
I can't recall the guy's face or voice,
but I swear he's still out there,
and my parents are dead.

Heel

Rhonda, my gentle and sturdy mix
of border collie and malamute,
who bears the endless probes
of two-year olds with that good nature
bred into pack breeds, and limits her urgency
to the never ending, always futile quest
for squirrel and vole, who would smother
any burglar so grossly ill-informed
as to hope a cache of riches awaited him
with her wet nose and dangly tongue,
whose pacific acceptance of restraint
and rebuke is Buddhist and boundless,
has just torn for the throat of her fellow
mongrel, blind, gaunt, flatulent Maxx,
now-decrepit mutt...