The Palace by Kaveh Akbar

The Palace

 

It’s hard to remember who I’m talking to

     and why. The palace burns, the palace

is fire

     and my throne is comfy and

square.

 

--

 

Remember: the old king invited his subjects into his home

to feast on stores of apple tarts and sweet lamb. To feast on sweet lamb of

     stories. He believed

 

they loved him, that his goodness

had earned him their goodness.

 

Their goodness dragged him into the street

and tore off

 

his arms, plucked

                    his goodness out, plucked his fingers out

                                                  like feathers.

 

--

 

There are no good kings.

Only beautiful palaces.

 

--

 

Who here could claim to be merely guilty?

          The mere.

 

          My life

growing monstrous

with ease.

 

To be an American my father left his siblings

                         believing

he’d never see them again. My father

                         wanted to be Mick Jagger. My father

          went full ghost,

ended up working on duck farms for thirty years, once a sleep

          a couch,

          he coughed up a feather.

 

--

 

          America could be a metaphor, but it isn’t.

          Asleep on the couch, he coughed up a white duck feather.

 

--

 

There are no doors in America.

Only king-sized holes.

 

--

 

To be an American is to be a scholar

of opportunity.

 

Opportunity costs.

 

Every orange I eat disappears the million

peaches, plums, pears I could have eaten

 

but didn’t.

 

In heaven, opportunity costs.

In her heaven

 

my mother grows

peaches, plums, pears, and I eat them till I pass out

 

and wake up in heaven;

 

wake up, and eat some more. I couldn’t dream of doing anything

by halves. Whatever it is, I’ll take the whole

          bouquet. Please and soon.

 

--

 

Are you still listening?

              Every person I touch

                              costs me ten million I’ll never meet. Persons and persons,

 

              inside each

              a palace on fire. Inside each

 

Mick Jagger wearing a gorilla-pelt coat covered in ostrich feathers.

He calls it “glamouflage.”

 

--

 

What’s gone, but still seen?

 

--

 

Luckless soldiers,

the pencil pushed slowly through my brother’s tricep.

 

(What’s gone, but still seen?)

 

He didn’t scream, just let his eyes water.

If I smile even a little: they start sharpening their swords.

And they’re right. This is no time for joy.

 

This is no time. The palace burns.

Pencil pushes slowly through my brother’s brother.

 

(What’s still, but seen gone?)

 

--

 

A king governs best

in the dark, where you can’t see his hands move. A king

 

doesn’t see us

watching the king.

 

We sew God’s initials into our workshirts

 

while our babies get thinner.

The babies do not see us

 

watching our babies

get thinner.

 

Our babies born addicted to fear of babies.

Our babies gumming apples in the sun.

 

--

 

America? the broken headstone.

America? far enough away from itself.

 

--

 

Hello, this is Kaveh speaking:

I wanted to be Keats

(but I’ve already lived four years too long).

 

Hello, this is Keats speaking:

it is absurd to say anything now

(much less anything new).

 

Hello, this is no one speaking:

hibiscus bloom, wet feathers,

(a tiny thumb of ash).

 

--

 

To be American is to be a hunter.

 

To be American. Who can be American?

 

To be American is to be? What? A hunter? A hunter

who shoots only money.

                         No, not money—

                         money.

 

--

 

I have a kitchen device

that lets me spin lettuce.

There is no elegant way

               to say this—people

               with living hearts

               that could fit in my chest

want to melt the city where I was born.

At his elementary school in an American suburb,

a boy’s shirt says: “We Did It To Hiroshima, We Can Do It To Tehran!”

 

--

 

At his elementary school in an American suburb,

a boy’s shirt says: “We Did It To Hiroshima, We Can Do It To Tehran!”

 

--

 

The take-home trophy:

               roasted goat baying on the spit.

 

--

 

A boy’s shirt says: “We Did It To Hiroshima, We Can Do It To Tehran!”

 

He is asked to turn his shirt inside out.

He is asked? His insides, out.

After he complies, his parents sue the school district.

 

Our souls want to know

how they were made,

                              what is owed.

 

These parents want their boy

to want to melt my family,

and I live among them.

 

Palace throne. Comfy, burning.

I draw it without lifting my pen.

I draw it fat as creation—

 

                              empty as a footprint.

 

--

 

How to live? reading poems, breathing shallow,

spinning lettuce.

 

--

 

America the shallow breath,

how to live?

 

The shallow trap, America

catching

 

only what is too small to eat.

 

--

 

The dead keep warm under America

while my mother fries eggplant on a stove.

 

--

 

I am not there.

I am elsewhere in America (I am always

elsewhere in America) writing this, writing this, writing this, English

is my mother’s first language,

but not mine.

I might have said bademjan.

I might have said khodafez.

 

               Sizzling oil, great fists of smoke, writing this.

 

--

 

The first insect drawn by man was a locust.

Art is where what we survive survives.

 

Sizzling oil, great fists of smoke. Art. Sizzling oil. Art.

My mother fries eggplant. The first

 

insect drawn by man survives.

 

--

 

Who to kiss the prom queen?

          Brain pulsing like an oyster.

 

Who to win the war?

America rises

 

                              covered in

the tiny grains of its own making:

 

fresh bread pocked with flour dust.

 

Mistyping in an e-mail I write,

I lose you so much today,

 

then leave it.

 

Forbidden mercies, windmills spinning around

like drunk teenagers.

 

--

 

Any document of civilization is also a document of barbarism

               says the palace, burning.

 

                              I, a man

                         am what I do not say.

 

America I warn you if you invite me into your home

I will linger,

 

losing, kissing my beloveds frankly,

                              pulling up radishes

                              and capping all your pens.

 

                         There are no good kings,

                    only burning palaces.

 

                    Lose me today, so much.