This poem is taken from PN Review 256, Volume 47 Number 2, November - December 2020.
Red Cities and other poems
Red Cities
I came to this planet earth
with cherries hanging on my ears
and I was not a girl.
I am also that girl.
I followed the path of the horse’s gallop,
by a setar that played without strings
and I was not a musician. I am
also that hand that plays. The man
dropped a coin for my sound.
I am that man. The glint rolled as sound
loaded a horn so loud it banged
and worth was fashioned well. I am
a bursted eardrum. The ear felt
wind sigh past. Wind cuts across
the ear. That ear is me.
The ear is a house that rests
on water with stilts that wobble.
Those stilts are me. And that house
...
I came to this planet earth
with cherries hanging on my ears
and I was not a girl.
I am also that girl.
I followed the path of the horse’s gallop,
by a setar that played without strings
and I was not a musician. I am
also that hand that plays. The man
dropped a coin for my sound.
I am that man. The glint rolled as sound
loaded a horn so loud it banged
and worth was fashioned well. I am
a bursted eardrum. The ear felt
wind sigh past. Wind cuts across
the ear. That ear is me.
The ear is a house that rests
on water with stilts that wobble.
Those stilts are me. And that house
...
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