"Ultrasound" by Kaveh Akbar

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 2, 2019   Ultrasound   Kaveh Akbar

my father is tying concertina wire around his garden which is now all but ruined by squirrels deer and worst of all rabbits with cucumber seeds stuck to their tails     I am an apex predator my father is an apex predator god makes us in pairs      my mother searches the lawn for four-leaf clovers pinning them to a scrapbook pinning moments to time she gives each clover a name Buck Comes Onto Porch and Hospital Note From Kaveh    while she makes tea inside I search the house for a lighter and can't even find matches       what I miss most about winter is the brightness of winter summer's all foggy and wet       my mother hovers in the kitchen like a strange tune       she is out of saffron and has no money for more        she weeps over her bleach-white rice until my father comes in cracks an egg over the plate bursts the yolk says see says yellow       my mother smiles so big and sad she wrinkles into the future where my eyes are yellow again maybe from the yolk maybe something else       my fur is coming in so thick my mother would squeal with pride if she could see it      when she was pregnant I kicked so hard so often she could barely sleep       staying up all night she thought she must be full of bunnies            Copyright © 2019 Kaveh Akbar. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 2, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem   "My mother reads my poems, my father doesn't (this is for the best). After reading my first book, my mother's immediate response was, 'Why are there all these poems about your dad in here, and so few about me?' That's not really the case, both my parents appear frequently throughout the book; but, ever the dutiful son, I set out to write my mother a poem—this one. Ever the screw-up, however, I accidentally opened the poem with an image of my father." —Kaveh Akbar   Kaveh Akbar is the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James, 2017). The recipient of a Levis Reading Prize and a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship, he is the founding editor of Divedapper, a home for interviews with major voices in contemporary poetry. He teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. He lives in Indiana. Photo Credit: Marlon James Poetry by Akbar   Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James, 2017) "A Baby Running Barefoot" by D. H. Lawrence "Wedding Cake" by Naomi Shihab Nye "For My Son Born in La Mariscal" by Natalie Scenters-Zapico May Guest Editor: Victoria Chang   Thanks to Victoria Chang, author of Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Chang about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. 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