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 a Palestinian-American poet and scientist and the author of Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022), finalist for the Medal Provocateur, the Housatonic Book Award, and the Balcones Prize for Poetry. His poems have appeared in Guernica, AGNI, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He lives and benefits from being a settler on Paskestikweya land. (updated 4/2024)
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”