Calling a Wolf a Wolf

by Kaveh Akbar

They are ready to die with their kind, dry and stiff above the wet earth.

When I said I’d eat even your baby fat, what I meant was collect your meat and deliver it to me, I’m tired of chewing the same bones day in and day out.

I too have been trying to exalt my own body, but there is no switch to flip for this.

Any drunk can tell you willpower’s useless, but that doesn’t stop us from trusting it – the drowning man surfaces three times before sinking completely.

‘If love were in the flesh I would burn it out with hot irons and be at peace.’

now I regret every drink I never took

this sweating a mouthful of lime

as a boy I stole a mint green bra from a laundromat I took it home to try on while my parents slept filled its cups with the smallest turnips in our pantry the underwire grew into me like a strangler fig my blood roiled then as now

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

he will leave out my crueldrunk nights the wet mattresses my driving alone into cornfields unsure whether I’d drive out I wish he were here now he could be here this cave is big enough for everyone look at all the diamonds

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.

My ancestors shot bones out of cannons and built homes where they landed. This is to say, I was born the king of nothing, pulled out from nothing like a carrot slipped from soil.

I am still learning the local law: don’t hurt something that can smile, don’t hold a...

My first time – brown arms, purple lips, lush as a gun – we slumped into each others’ thighs. She said duset daram, mano tanha...

As a boy I tore out the one hundred and nine pages about Hell in my first Qur’an. Bountiful bloomscattering Lord, I could feel you behind my eyes and under my tongue, shocking me nightly like an old battery. What did I need with Hell? Now that I’ve sucked you wrinkly like a thumb, I can barely be bothered to check in.

Will I ever even know when my work is done? I’m almost ready to show you the mess I’ve made.

a skull floats up from the pond and makes a sound like a gull shriek to warn me I have stood here too long

such provocation is needed to pull a man open to expose his earthmeat

anyone can understand a skull even the seeds in my pocket are cracking awake

now the math seems obvious

my brain where brackish water trickles in and memory trickles out with what do I mend a hole like that answer me with what

then hobble back to your hovel like a knight moving only in L’s.

Or you arrive home after a long day to discover your children have grown suddenly hideous and unlovable.

So much of everything is dumb baffle:

two hounds will fight over a feather because feathers are strange.

All I want is to finally take off my cowboy hat and show you my jeweled horns. If we slow dance I will ask you not to tug on them, but secretly I will want that very much.

Every Drunk Wants to Die Sober It’s How We Beat the Game

I found my body to be hard and bloodless as glass still for effect

eternity looms in the corner like a home invader saying don’t mind me I’m just here to watch you nap

if you throw prayer beads at a ghost they will cut through him soft as a sabre through silk

I finally have answers to the questions I taught my mother not to ask but...

it’s hard to speak of something so gauche as ambition while the whole wheezing mosaic chips away but let it be known I do hope one day to be free of this body’s dry wood

an olive tree explodes into the sky dazzling even the night

I don’t understand the words I babble in home movies from Tehran but I assume they were lovely I have always been a tangle of tongue and pretty want

in Islam there are prayers to return almost anything even prayers to return faith I have been going through book after book pushing the sounds through my teeth I will keep making these noises as long as deem...

everything has limits

we tell this kind of story to stay humble

the best part of God is the math of God you can count the pearls leading from here to him

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

the womb is a clammy pulp of shredded tongues where we choose our obsessions

do you understand what I’m saying I confess I have been trying to seduce you I’m not the fat egg I claimed to be I’m sorry for that and for all the tears the delicate emotions should have felt more hypothetical I have mastered this grammar and little more

If you could be anything in the world you would.

Do you like your new home, tucked away between brainfolds? To hold you always seemed as unlikely as catching the wind in an envelope.

Now you are loudest before bed, humming like a child put in a corner. I don’t mind much; I have never been a strong sleeper, and often the tune is halfway lovely.