In Everything a Little Remains
- In Everything a Little Remains
after Carlos Drummond de Andrade
In everything a little remains.In our factory-farmed eggs, a little pastureremains, one wide enough to coolthe pain of the fire-hot blade
slicing each hen's beak after birth.A freedom of the heart, if you will,an imagined green—with waterfalls, and lilies—to spare us the constraint of wire walls
that restrict a wingspan's width, providingno space to move without steppingon another hen. Why think of each henstepping upon the next, when we can envision
the prairie—as the label depicts—where the birds roam at will and do not diecramped in piles of ten, unable to budgefrom their trembling cage mates who
have not, and will not, spend one day outside?In everything a little remains. In our "100% WholeGrain" shredded wheat, a little pesticide remains,just a little bit. A 100% weed killer, if you will.
A tinge of Monsanto. A touch of glyphosate.Just think of how, in everything, a little remains.—in our "organic" baby formula.—in our "organic" toothpaste. [End Page 13]
In our processed meat, a little humanDNA. In our fish fillet, a little plasticcoated with algae, migrating into fleshfrom the guts that betrayed them.
In everything a little remains. In every bitof integrity, perhaps, a little shredof corruption. In every lie,a little truth. My truth, yours. Not much—
but still. In every foolishnessthere is, perhaps, a little wisdom.And in every regulating body, a bodyregulated. In every truth, a little lie. [End Page 14]
Dilruba Ahmed's debut book, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press, 2011), won the Bakeless Prize awarded by the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her poems have appeared (or will soon appear) in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, New England Review, and Poetry. Her work has also been anthologized in Literature: The Human Experience (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016), Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (University of Arkansas, 2010), and elsewhere.
