Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Ars Poetica
Write a poem about lust without using the word
lust. Luxuriate in the prayer.
Give birth in an open field, then go back
to work. Search for your own body
among all the talk of other bodies. Draw up the resonant
smell from memory. Be the biggest presence
in your own life, your own biggest ghost in your own
cemetery of numbers. Feed your guests
sandwiches of sugar & meat from your best
horse. Tear down the road signs
to confuse the advancing troops.
Feel the fullness of your bladder.
Issam Zineh is assistant poetry editor of AGNI and has been on the editorial team since 2024. He is the author of Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022), a Trio House Press Editors’ Selection and finalist for the Housatonic Book Award and Balcones Prize for Poetry. A public health care worker, he lives on Paskestikweya land. Visit him at www.issamzineh.com. (updated 7/2024)
Read Zineh’s entry in AGNI’s “In Discussion: AGNI 95 Reviews AGNI 95”
Read Jacques J. Rancourt’s review of Zineh’s “N. Oxford Avenue” in the folio “AGNI 95 Reviews AGNI 95”