Back to Issue Fifty-Seven

AFTER FORTY DAYS

by DARIUS ATEFAT-PECKHAM

Time turned back. Said, Leave her be. Her life is,
As it once was, over, after this. It is not true

That a lily lasts only forty days. It will be
Different for different lilies. Of which

She is all, or none. She will go north, away
From the devastation, to the sea. There,

A water lily, her petals will open at night, close
During the day. Days will fall like the last

Pistachios to the bottom of your bag, carried here
For you, soaked in citrus. Offer them to the woman

In the airport with the most beautiful hair.
What have you been trying to save? Time

Emptying your branches. The wind ensuring
Your family’s passage across this shaken ground.

 

PLANET MARFA

by DARIUS ATEFAT-PECKHAM

for Isabel and Debbie

The desert lightning flashed. I am not
so far gone. I am not beyond

believing in your magic dog, old man
or the other passengers on this broke down bus:

a girl & her parrot, quiet beak perched in
the crook of her heart. A few adults sipping

the gold leaf of their Modelos, my sweet
friends smiling down from above

as I snap their picture. Our driver turns
the wheel this way & that as she hums

something about love. I never had
an imaginary friend, but the being outside

peeing in the grass saw my brother beside me.
The last few days, on planet Marfa, I’ve laughed

so hard I cried. Smiled watching Debbie & Isabel
reach for the other’s hand as they disappeared

into the stagelights. I’ve stood in silence
nearly twenty seconds looking out into

this desert dark for a light I can neither see
nor explain. Officer, old man Sleeper, Unlucky

Heart, would you let me off with just a warning?
My friends are inside The Wild Mare waiting

for me, & I’m starting to believe the only lights
in this field are the way we look for them.

 

Darius Atefat-Peckham is the author of Book of Kin winner of the Autumn House Poetry Prize (October, 2024) and editor of his mother’s, Susan Atefat-Peckham’s, posthumous collection Deep Are These Distances Between Us (CavanKerry Press, 2023). His work has recently appeared in Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Kenyon Review, Oxford Poetry, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. Atefat-Peckham grew up in Huntington, West Virginia and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Harvard. He is currently a Poetry Fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas.

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