Two Poems by Darius Atefat-Peckham
This is a selection from our Fall/Winter 2020 issue. Darius Atefat-Peckham was one of the Breakout 8 winners. Please click here to purchase a print or digital version of the full issue featuring prose, poetry, and art from over 20 artists.
HERE’S A LOVE POEM TO BLUEBERRIES
Minutes before the
anniversary, I am
inexplicably thinking
about blueberries, and the
evening of my love
crushing some
with her teeth. Golru
in Farsi, is flower-face, lacking
equivalence. I’ve seen many
things I haven’t seen. Like a man
sanitizing his utensils
methodically with an onion
on Valiasr street in Tehran. Like
the swift openings of many
fruits. So, yes, I am thinking
about lifespan. Under ideal
conditions a blueberry bush lives
sixty years. The way
my mother was, maybe,
half-life of a blueberry
bush, crown jewel
of Iran, first masterpiece of
God, and eyes, dark sheen before
ruin. In Iran, there is no good word
for blueberry. In the soil
there, this fruit is nearly
impossible. And so, since
there is not much of a place to go,
I look between my love’s teeth, and
as I see it in these moments,
there are green stars like
crown and little blue
pieces of flesh like night.
It is just comfort and I am just
thinking. I am always thinking.
There is only so much life
to live. Only so much time
under ideal conditions.
So much. Only so much.
WINDCHIMES
The first sound
was the axe blade
shucking away at my bones. Back when our toes
were encased
in shields of plaster. Now,
Dad’s begun wearing
multi-colored socks. Even his students
relish their soft and quiet
gift, await his slip of ankle
to witness
them. There have been years
I guess, since
he’d pad around in his shoes barefoot
big toes lancing
the fabric. Since he prayed
his hair beneath hand driers at the Y
his hand
a comb
or a shower readying him
for the day. I liked that we
were the same
age, then, groping eternally for something
to wear. How can I begin
to make sense
of this? The smell
of years-
old vomit steeping
in the passenger-seat as we drove to visit
my new mother, the dog
dazed at the making of itself
in the corner, Dad munching at 3 AM
on a breakfast burrito, steering the car with his knees
through an intersection
despite it all.
I used to tell my father everything.
My wish that
alive again
I could hear my mother’s sound
like a gentle porch-breeze rippling
through. Sadaya Khesh Khesh in Farsi
is radio static, is the shuffle
of feet through the leaves
to this day
I have no idea
what it sounds like. Only Dad
picking the skin from his callus palm, the flourish
of wrap and wheel. Only the imitations of a woman
for whom I’d draw rivers back
into their valleys—my father undoing it
like laces: your mother’s laugh [khesh]
was like a—
Bear—Honey, [I love you]
it was like something
the fullness of time, full of
[hush] music, this final
[sadaya] sound.
It was like all of that?
[Sh]ure. Then your socks must be
something of embellished
instrument
and your feet
like fingers or a throat bared
to the sound. It must be
my brother’s hands
shuffling through the mulch
searching for something
to wear. A wash
of pearls—no, not even this.
Just the playground
groaning its emptiness
to the yard.
Darius Atefat-Peckham is an Iranian-American poet and essayist. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Texas Review, Brevity, Crab Orchard Review and elsewhere. In 2018, Atefat-Peckham was selected by the Library of Congress as a National Student Poet, the nation’s highest honor presented to youth poets writing original work. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including My Shadow is My Skin: Voices from the Iranian Diaspora (University of Texas Press). Atefat-Peckham currently studies Creative Writing at Harvard College.
