This was originally published at The Rumpus on January 8, 2017.
During the month of June 2022, we’re highlighting some of our favorite work from The Rumpus archives to show readers how the magazine has provided a space for great writing throughout our 13 years. If you appreciate the work we do, please consider becoming a Rumpus Member during this month’s 1st ever Member Drive.
Each day from January 7 through January 20, Rumpus Original Poems will feature work in response to the coming presidential inauguration. Today’s poem is from Kaveh Akbar.
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POEM TO A CONQUEROR
a groundwind wishes away
the dandelion
peels
and quarters the citrus
like wind
you come panting and aimless
bringing your own lumber
to warp and termite yourself
when you touch my face
you believe it is perfectable
you say
this is perfectable
when you move
you move like a carousel of flames
see: a row of broken chairs
in the pinerot
see: a petal
pressed between needle and skin
if the whole body were an eye
where would the hearing be
when I dream I dream like an ox
broken plow after broken plow
patience is a virtue
and virtue is easy
I only need to fear
the parts of you I can see
– Kaveh Akbar
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Kaveh Akbar is the Founding Editor of Divedapper. His poems appear recently or soon in the New Yorker, Poetry, APR, Tin House, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. He is the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James 2017) and the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic (Sibling Rivalry). The recipient of a 2016 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and currently lives and teaches in Florida.
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