Calling a Wolf a Wolf

by Kaveh Akbar

I keep dreaming I’m a creature pulling out my claws one by one to sell in a market stall next to stacks of pomegranates and garden tools.

I have been chewing out my stitches wondering which warm names we should try singing

I have been so careless with the words I already have.

For so long every step I’ve taken has been from one tongue to another.

The things I’ve thought I’ve loved could sink an ocean liner, and likely would if given the chance.

envy is the only deadly sin that’s no fun for the sinner

I’ve given this coldness many names thinking if it had a name it would have a solution thinking if I called a wolf a wolf I might dull its fangs

Sometimes you have to march all the way to Galilee or the literal foot of God himself before you realize you’ve already passed the place where you were supposed to die.

angels don’t care about humility

I’m becoming more a vessel of memories than a person

The lesson: it’s never too late to become a new thing, to rip the fur from your face and dive dimplefirst into the strange.

God loves the hungry more than the full.

Today, I’m finding problems in areas where I didn’t have areas before.

Odd, for an apocalypse to announce itself with such bounty.

I’m afraid of him of the way keeping him a secret will make him inevitable

to make life first you need a dying star this seems important with you so close to collapsing yourself

Sometimes when I listen to old Persian music I get so sad I can actually smell rosewater.

how many times are you allowed to lose the same beloveds before you stop believing they’re gone

I remain a hungry child and the idea of a land flowing with milk and honey makes me excited, but I do wonder what gets left out—

there is a pond I leapt into once with a lonely blonde boy when we scampered out one of us was in love I could not be held responsible for desire he could not be held at all

Lord, I meant to be helpless, sex- less as a comma, quiet as cotton floating on a pond. Instead, I charged into desire like a tiger sprinting off the edge of the world.

What I’m trying to say is I think it’s okay to accelerate around corners, to grunt back at the mailman and swallow all your laundry quarters.

sometimes faith feels too far away to be of any use a distant moon built from the prophets’ holy bones other times it’s so near I can hold it between my teeth

that I struggle to love other men is a lie I’ve uttered with confidence at certain convenient moments in my life I can’t imagine anything less true

it’s true I suppose you grow to love the creatures you create some of them come out with pupils swirling others with teeth

I was promised epiphany, earth- honey, and a flood of milk, but I will settle for anything that brings you now,

In order to be consumed first you need to be consumable, but there is not a single part of you I could fit in my mouth.