—after “Environment for Three Overweight Parakeets”
You thought you were seeking beauty
in that plain, little box. Fixed your face
to the aperture. Inside, a chaos
of swimming through stones, doll arms cocked
mid-crawl, poking above the ocean
of rubble seething beneath. Where were they
digging toward? What would we dig up?
Yes, it’s true, a Venus De Milo hung
above the field of baby arms
but she remained a white silence above
the slow-motion detonation. Now you see
the entire scene—the arms, the missing,
rubble beneath, and a black mirror, where
your own eyes
regard you, silently.
Philip Metres has written thirteen books, including Dispatches from the Land of Erasure and Fugitive/Refuge. Winner of three Arab American Book Awards and a Guggenheim, he is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice & Human Rights program at John Carroll University, and faculty at VCFA MFA.
