"Incantation" by Chris Abani

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 31, 2018   Incantation   Chris Abani

What words can you wrap around   a dying brother, still dying, even now.   A man who has not eaten for a month   sips at water and says, even thirst is a gift.   He asks what other gifts God has given him.   I'm your gift, his daughter says from a corner.   And he smiles and rasps—   you can only unwrap a child once.   The rest is prayer and even more prayer.   You sing softly to him in a language   only the two of you speak and he   snores softly into your palm, breath and blood.                Copyright © 2018 Chris Abani. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "For the Ehugbo, how we die is as important as how we live, and to be allowed to sit in the presence of a dying brother is a rare privilege. To be graced with the chance to sing family across, to ease the journey, to make a love of dying, a grace of loss, is an incomparable gift. This is all." —Chris Abani   Chris Abani's most recent poetry collection is Sanctificum (Copper Canyon Press, 2010). Born in Nigeria, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Board of Trustees Professor of English and comparative literary studies at Northwestern University. He lives in Chicago. Poetry by Abani   Sanctificum (Copper Canyon Press, 2010) "One Moment Touching All the Others" by Jeff Hardin "Seeing the Body" by Rachel Eliza Griffiths "Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak" by Elizabeth Knapp May Guest Editor: Matthew Shenoda   Thanks to Matthew Shenoda, author of Tahrir Suite: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Shenoda and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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