Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar

Flour thrown on a ghost.

Something delicate released in my chest, like a gold ring dropping in a bowl of milk.

For our species, the idea of art as ornament is a relatively new one. Our ape brains got too big, too big for our heads, too big for our mothers to birth them. So we started keeping all our extra knowing in language, in art, in stories and books and songs. Art was a way of storing our brains in each other’s.

An alphabet, like a life, is a finite set of shapes. With it, one can produce almost anything.

“It reminds me of this one Milosz poem,” Cyrus said. “ ‘Those expecting archangels’ trumpets and locusts and horsemen will be disappointed,’ something like that. I’m probably bungling it.” He slipped his hand into Zee’s and squeezed it tightly. Zee kissed him on the cheek.

“All those severe poets talking big about the wages of sin all the time,” Zee added, “but nobody ever brought up the wages of virtue. The toll of trying really really hard to be good in a game that’s totally rigged against goodness.”

“Dreams are the great preserve of the earnest.

My God, I just remembered that we die. But—but me too?! Don’t forget that for now, it’s strawberry season.