Elegy by Aracelis Girmay
Elegy
Aracelis GirmayWhat to do with this knowledge
that our living is not guaranteed?Perhaps one day you touch the young branch
of something beautiful. & it grows & grows
despite your birthdays & the death certificate,
& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful
or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out
of your house, then, believing in this.
Nothing else matters.All above us is the touching
of strangers & parrots,
some of them human,
some of them not human.Listen to me. I am telling you
a true thing. This is the only kingdom.
The kingdom of touching;
the touches of the disappearing, things.
MARGINALIA
1.
Here are things that are true: the deep lines on my knuckles that find my beloved’s lips again and again. Corners of a sandwich. Dried dash of soap in the sink. The neighbour’s baby whose cries sound like a cat. A blue card on my desk that says cleanse. The curve of his shoulder I want my lips to find again and again.
2.
Nothing is ever promised, I think, on most days. When you tell me I love you with your eyes, I remember we are all here on borrowed time.
3.
I want to believe that something beautiful will grow from me. That has to be enough.
4.
It’s almost unbearable, isn’t it, the way we still reach for one another. How we are all strangers and yet. I hold the elevator door open with my foot. She chases a rolling onion down the grocery aisle after I dropped it. They sing and clap happy birthday even if they are three tables over. Oh how undone I am by all of it.
5.
Here’s another thing that’s true: my body is a kingdom of touches. I long for my grandfather’s hand. I miss my lover’s skin. How I move through my life always reaching.
KEEP READING
SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay, published by BOA Editions Ltd., 2011. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“The poems in this highly anticipated second book are elegiac poems, as concerned with honoring our dead as they are with praising the living. Through Aracelis Girmay’s lens, everything is animal: the sea, a jukebox, the desert. In these poems, everything possesses a system of desire, hunger, a set of teeth, and language. These are poems about what is both difficult and beautiful about our time here on earth.
Aracelis Girmay‘s debut collection won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. A Cave Canem Fellow, she is on the faculty at Drew University and Hampshire College. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.” (Source)
ABOUT ARACELIS GIRMAY
Born and raised in Santa Ana, California, poet Aracelis Girmay earned a BA at Connecticut College and an MFA from New York University. Her poems trace the connections of transformation and loss across cities and bodies.
Her poetry collections include Teeth (2007), Kingdom Animalia (2011), and The Black Maria (2016), named a “Top Poetry Pick” by Publisher’s Weekly, O Magazine, and Library Journal. She is also the author of the collage-based picture… (more)
Read more poems by Aracelis Girmay • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: skin • being human • people • Or browse the index
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M
How beautiful. Thanks for sharing, T.
CARLOS DELREAL
I lived with a woman for 23 years until her death. She was beautiful. She was a writer. She wished to be perpetually in thrall. Her seeking took her away from me and the real world. I watched her secret herself in her internal world. Her imaginary lover took most of her attention. I was relieved that she did not actually. When I learned of her interior infidelities it tainted my grief with anger. As often happens our friends also became ghosts after she died. Another figment, that anyone was ever there.
eileendelany
I LOVED BOTH POETRYS. I ENJOYED READING BOTH OF THEM.