New England Review

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Contemporary British Poets

Mir Mahfuz Ali

from NER 41.2
Buy the issue in print or as an ebook

LETTER TO MYSELF
Dear angry one,           you blow up,
then storm out of my life
leaving my body          parts scattered,
the limbs beside a ridge.
I rush to them before the dogs tear my flesh.
Collect the parts         but they no longer fit,
yet I feel alive in fragments.
There’s always something
that needs fixing—broken shoulder blade,
cracked skull,
but who is to mend them?
Time will heal me.        It schooled its fingers
to stitch the dismembered parts into a being
with such care      I feel I am whole
again and attractive again
to the point as if someone is ready to eat me
without discovering what I am
like underneath           my rescued body.

DIRTY PIG
The girl opens her bedroom window
to let fresh air in.
Part of me goes in to mix
with her perfumes and hair sprays.
I think my smell is swilling her brain
and she’s to wear it
from now on when she strips herself
for bed. Before my mind
wallows in the idea, the girl waves a stick,
calls me a swine for making a mess
of her yard. I grunt.
She tips a bucket over my head,
shakes off the fish guts,
egg shells and bitter grapefruit peel.
She yells at me
that I spend all day putzing around in the sty.
For a scuzz like me
you would think muck is easier to wash
than the stain on my character.

People hold their noses and move away,
I move away myself
but the stink keeps me penned.
I am sick of feeling,
threatening the world with my fist.


TODAY I SING FOR HIM
   I hurt the man I love.
For him I want to croon.
   It’s hard to turn words
into rain and soak the clothes
   my memories put on.
Untie my bodice, then
   watch the ocean swallow
the bolus of the citrus sun.
   So many tunes are on the loose
bursting with song,
   seeking a merger with him
but it’s harder on the heart
   than it is on the throat.
I hope he is listening
   on the long drive home.

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Vol. 43, No. 2

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Rosalie Moffett

Writer’s Notebook—Hysterosalpingography

Rosalie Moffett

Many of the poems I’ve been writing lately are trying to figure out how to think about the future, how to reasonably hope, and what we must be resigned to. How can you imagine the future when the present is so slippery, so ready to dissolve?

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