Issam Zineh
Letters to Go Unmailed Until After the Upcoming Exhibition
I can’t stop thinking about horses.
The one in particular.
My uncle Victor’s – Zebulon.
One time Uncle Vic rode Zeb down
to my grandparents’ house at the foothills
of the Santa Susana mountains.
He must have taken the freeway
to get there. The animal was
blood bay, maybe chestnut.
I can’t know for sure, it was so long
ago. I do remember the diamond star
on his forehead and how he would lather
at the thighs when he ran. I picture you
at the Met taking in a granite relief.
Two Horses. Skittish little ghosts.
Zeb’s been dead for decades.
My grandparents are dead, too.
There is the vestige of a citrus grove.
*
My parents still don’t know what I do for a living.
They have a general sense--scientist or he tries
to understand the body—but couldn’t necessarily
explain it to a stranger on the train.
Do you think I’m not trying hard enough?
Do you think it’s possible to have a sense
for the total morphemes of a given language?
I’ve lost my passion. You can only interrogate
the genome for so long before it becomes
abuse. Label its base pairs, flowers and such.
Our old metaphors, flesh and bone, begin
to fall apart. The body, heavy with motive,
is no longer surprising, but you still excite
me with your devotion. Did you know paintings
of European women dressed in Japanese costumes
were exceedingly popular at one point? Human desire
can be so atrocious, right? I wonder if Monet got off
on taking Camille from behind and throwing a kimono
on her, telling her to smile, but not too much.
Luminaries in the field are now saying much
of what we believed was wrong. You cut my hair
once in the kitchen. Almost put the scissors
through the cartilage of my ear. Almost
took my ear off. Almost did it more than once.
I love how I can always count on you.
*
In a far Florida, a magnolia grows out of a sinkhole
like natural propaganda.
The folks in the rural foothills of western
North Carolina have something to be happy about.
Thanks to the Library of Congress, they will
soon have high-speed internet. The center
of Algeria has been burning all morning, and we
are getting a little antsy in our own downtowns--
to find the right metaphor is too much work. One
resorts to describing body parts: I love mine more
than I love yours. But don’t misunderstand me, I do
love yours. Your body reminds me of a naked
boy wrestling swans. Or a woman
in a Japanese robe, sitting on a carousel ostrich.
*
I want to paint you as Still Life with Monkey, Fruits, and Flowers.
Something stirs outside. It’s the monkey again.
I put out an epergne full of fruit and sweep a spot for the flowers.
A slice of melon drips in technicolor. I put the figs out next.
I ask you to undress and do the thing where you lie there and pretend to sleep:
Imagine you have forgotten the names of the animals. Imagine I am gone. Imagine your mouth
hints of the taste of limes.
Imagine you will be full forever.
*Poem Note: This poem alludes to artistic works by Charles Ray, Claude Monet, Philip Pearlstein, and Jean-Baptiste Oudry.
The one in particular.
My uncle Victor’s – Zebulon.
One time Uncle Vic rode Zeb down
to my grandparents’ house at the foothills
of the Santa Susana mountains.
He must have taken the freeway
to get there. The animal was
blood bay, maybe chestnut.
I can’t know for sure, it was so long
ago. I do remember the diamond star
on his forehead and how he would lather
at the thighs when he ran. I picture you
at the Met taking in a granite relief.
Two Horses. Skittish little ghosts.
Zeb’s been dead for decades.
My grandparents are dead, too.
There is the vestige of a citrus grove.
*
My parents still don’t know what I do for a living.
They have a general sense--scientist or he tries
to understand the body—but couldn’t necessarily
explain it to a stranger on the train.
Do you think I’m not trying hard enough?
Do you think it’s possible to have a sense
for the total morphemes of a given language?
I’ve lost my passion. You can only interrogate
the genome for so long before it becomes
abuse. Label its base pairs, flowers and such.
Our old metaphors, flesh and bone, begin
to fall apart. The body, heavy with motive,
is no longer surprising, but you still excite
me with your devotion. Did you know paintings
of European women dressed in Japanese costumes
were exceedingly popular at one point? Human desire
can be so atrocious, right? I wonder if Monet got off
on taking Camille from behind and throwing a kimono
on her, telling her to smile, but not too much.
Luminaries in the field are now saying much
of what we believed was wrong. You cut my hair
once in the kitchen. Almost put the scissors
through the cartilage of my ear. Almost
took my ear off. Almost did it more than once.
I love how I can always count on you.
*
In a far Florida, a magnolia grows out of a sinkhole
like natural propaganda.
The folks in the rural foothills of western
North Carolina have something to be happy about.
Thanks to the Library of Congress, they will
soon have high-speed internet. The center
of Algeria has been burning all morning, and we
are getting a little antsy in our own downtowns--
to find the right metaphor is too much work. One
resorts to describing body parts: I love mine more
than I love yours. But don’t misunderstand me, I do
love yours. Your body reminds me of a naked
boy wrestling swans. Or a woman
in a Japanese robe, sitting on a carousel ostrich.
*
I want to paint you as Still Life with Monkey, Fruits, and Flowers.
Something stirs outside. It’s the monkey again.
I put out an epergne full of fruit and sweep a spot for the flowers.
A slice of melon drips in technicolor. I put the figs out next.
I ask you to undress and do the thing where you lie there and pretend to sleep:
Imagine you have forgotten the names of the animals. Imagine I am gone. Imagine your mouth
hints of the taste of limes.
Imagine you will be full forever.
*Poem Note: This poem alludes to artistic works by Charles Ray, Claude Monet, Philip Pearlstein, and Jean-Baptiste Oudry.
Biography
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Issam Zineh (he/him) is a Los Angeles-born, Palestinian-American poet and scientist. He is author of the forthcoming chapbook The Moment of Greatest Alienation (Ethel Press, 2021). His most recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Pleiades, Tahoma Literary Review, Guesthouse, Lunch Ticket, Bear Review, Sporklet, Glass (Poets Resist), Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Find him at issamzineh.com or on Twitter @izineh.
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