Half Poem

After the war all that remains
reads as half scribbles of the half dead

language. I stop to eat an empanada,
half butterfly, by the lapping waves

& salivating dogs. Let the poem be the place
we touch our other halves, somewhere

between the parcels carried,
her cotton bag & face—Who is it you

remember? On 9^th street half a sandwich
bares its chest to the public.

No sparrow. No hungry child. Only
half a gesture to feed the people

this country’s long forgotten.
Half a history spreads over

our dining table in waxy scratches,
its grooves undoing the swinging

door. Like you’ve lived here before.
Let the poem be the place

the ghost half haunts & rages at how
we’ve made of the tree—

rain, soil, light—a weapon
with which to close upon

the quiet, half-lit slivers
longing for nothing.

Credit

Author

Maya Pindyck

Maya Pindyck is the author of Emoticoncert (Four Way Books, 2016) and Friend Among Stones (New Rivers Press, 2009). She is the recipient of a 2019 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is an assistant professor of liberal arts and director of the writing program at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Date Published

11/01/2018