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Monday, September 16, 2013

Experimental Geography

By Meena Alexander


Everything about the railway station was erased, including the woman who was carrying a child with a patch of blood on his shirt.
I became all at once an American. This is a sentence very hard to translate.
One is singing. Two says: one flows.
You cannot know how things go. No Prophecy. Who can gainsay a bird singing in a suitcase?
She was seven and started praying as hard as she could. By her pillow moths flew, in the lemon tree a nest of honey bees grew.
An overdose of caravans caused her hair to fall out.
Our Father who art on earth -- Lord of Sorrows and solar eruptions.
How many starts to hold the flag up? How many stripes to sink it? How many questions without answers?
Who becomes President if both he and the Vice President die?
The patch of blood on a child's shirt becomes a bird with no beak.
When the train arrived the refugees (for strictly speaking that is what they were) had no voice left in their throats.
Their clothing was quite dry. In spite of everything there was much singing.

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