哀 / Sad
From West: A Translation (Copper Canyon Press, 2023) by Paisley Rekdal. Copyright © 2023 by Paisley Rekdal. Used with the permission of the publisher.
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–From the immigration questionnaire given to Chinese entering or re-entering the U.S. during the Chinese Exclusion Act
Have you ridden in a streetcar?
Can you describe the taste of bread?
Where are the joss houses located in the city?
Do Jackson Street and Dupont run
in a circle or a line, what is the fruit
your mother ate before she bore you,
2020
We think Marsyas is the only one
who changed, stepping forth
from the forest to challenge Apollo, staring at the god
he could never rival as if
into a harshly lit mirror, each recoiling
at what he found there: the jealousy knifed
inside the mortal talent, the cold perfection
threaded through with rage.
But then the muses stirred behind them.
And Marsyas, out the painful human wish
to be admired, cannot help but play.
And afterwards, the cutting,
the stripped corpuscles, the ruined mouth—
2017
Shouldn’t it ache, this slit
into the sweet
and salt mix of waters
composing the mussel,
its labial meats
winged open: yellow-
fleshed, black and gray
around the tough
adductor? It hurts
to imagine it, regardless
of the harvester’s
denials, swiveling
his knife to make
the incision: one
dull cyst nicked
from the oyster’s
mantle—its thread of red
gland no bigger
than a seed
of trout roe—pressed
inside this mussel’s
tendered flesh.
Both hosts eased
open with a knife
2016