THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS: SARAH SARAI

Three Poems by Sarah Sarai

I'm Never Worried About What I'm Worried About

A cherry tree leans into your leg

becoming.

Households must join.

Truth is one hot shield.

You know, many of my short stories

are about a woman wanting to love

and while no one in the story knows

they’re old news (Keats’ “Ode”)

(the urn itself) (the lavender pump’s apogee)

they know.

“Clouds were thin”

you reported last night

“and wispy.” In a grocery store

no one tuned into the symphony.

Cherry trees’ temporal blossoms are

fragile (See STRONG – Roget’s II)

and strum George Harrison’s guitar.

I’m quite sure I hear a civilized minuet.

_____

First published in Fifth Wednesday Journal.

The Risen Barbie

i.

If Rapunzel had a bob

If the prince were less charming

If the witch a vegetarian

If the carousel had legs

ii.

The Beatitudes Barbie

The Leper Barbie

The Dead Lazarus Barbie

The Risen Barbie

Barbie at the Well

iii.

If Hendrix

If Buddy

If Richie

If Kurt

Jim, Amy, Otis, Janis.

Nick, Sid, Tupac

The Notorious B.I.G.

iv.

If Death is real

If the Divine goes

shopping for a MacBook Air

If we achieve Paradise

If the cool kids snub us

(ah, but the wonderful witty

welcome, wherever we go)

_____

First published in Sarah Sarai’s chapbook, The Risen Barbie, Dusie Kollektiv.

Something’s Falling



Because, and here’s my point,


because now, because loosened


by small destructions, because

shrapnel of civilization down


dizzy slow, because a little hand

drowning. Something’s falling.


Because empires of our beliefs


could inherit us promised days


but something’s falling. Now,

because we summon armies and


thugs unoriginal, barter a future


placid for a present spooked,


something’s falling because weary

apples weary, over and again.



Because only history supports


as we rant at kids on stick-

trembling legs, weep on fallow

chests, join neighbors one to


a four-cornered sheet stretched


to break the inevitable, study


a sky’s hindsight: Should it have

loosened more rain, moisting drops

to shimmer oily in sun, adorned

itself nirvanic swim-pool

aquamarines it’s marveled over

or painted indigo paisleys of a Hindu


bride across its breathy canopy?



Because what else? Recode

the Rosetta of history? Or will


love to our ones as cool heat


lifts soothing to the viridian


moss out of reach but scudding

close still, because the drowning

little hand, little hand, can touch it.



_____

First published The Threepenny Review, Issue 110.

*****

Sarah Sarai was born on Long Island, moved to Los Angeles when she was eight, lives in New York City, and misses California. Her poems have been published in Ascent, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Yew, Thrush, Ping-Pong, Boston Review, West Wind Review, The Writing Disorder (to which she is a contributing editor), and other journals. The Future Is Happy, her collection, was published by BlazeVOX. To read more, see the links to her fiction, reviews, poems, at My 3,000 Loving Arms. 

http://my3000lovingarms.blogspot.com