The Best American Poetry

First Fiction

You Are Not As Bad As You Think

by Patrick Hunt

image©Michael Worful

      You will immediately find yourself speaking to each other in a mixture of your two languages, and then one day you two will name that new language and it will become your first inside joke.

You will later figure out what her name means in English, and then you will tell her this one day, and you (just you) will laugh and tell her that it is funny, the way her name translates – you will even draw a picture – and she will laugh too, but she won't really get it.

Also one time, you were watching one of them put her jeans back on and they were so tight that she had to hop and tug at them a little, like they do in jeans commercials, and you wanted to tell her how sexy you thought she looked at that moment, but you knew she wouldn't have known what you meant and there was no round about way to explain it.

 You have to learn the lesson time and time again that it's probably not a good idea getting involved with them. 

The first of them you kissed, she darted her tongue in and out of your mouth rapidly, like she was tasting something with the tip of her tongue over and over and over again and you were under the impression (until the next one came along) that they all kissed like this. When you told your friend about this, he made a joke about lizards.

                           image©Michael Worful

Because of them, you have learned that in real life (as opposed to, like, detergent commercials), when you come home after seeing them, or after they leave, there will not be evidence of their makeup on your collar, a lip print or something. No, it will be in the most unlikeliest of places – a smear of foundation across the chest of your shirt, on the knee of your pants, a dab of something fuchsia on your forearm. They all wear so much makeup.

            When it happens in the winter though, it's kind of fun because you both have so many layers of clothes on that it takes forever to get undressed and sometimes arms and legs and heads and feet and hands get tangled and ensnared – a pant leg is suddenly a Venus fly trap; one of you is suddenly an escapist – and this sometimes makes you laugh, and she'll think it is because of her and quickly cover up and look hurt, wounded. But you'll laugh again and say it's nothing, there is no reason, don't worry. After, one of you will be missing a sock or a bra. It will be discovered in the arm of a shirt or the leg of a longjohn.

          You are forever in fear of one of their boyfriends or husbands or brothers or fathers finding you and murdering you. Just last week, as you were walking through the market, some man spit on your face and

"Las Meninas" (Velazquez) [by Mark Minton]

Las Meninas
(for Rob Shore)

In Diego Velazquez's great painting "Las Meninas,"
or "Maids of Honor," life and art fight to a draw:

Chaotic activity overwhelms the canvas,
and the purposeful artist pauses to impose order.

The little maidens are so "off message,"
as one adjusts her skirt and another approaches
the sleepy royal dog, a killer at rest.

Somewhere near the back of the room
a courtier parts a curtain and steps into the stair,
surveying the disordered scene
before departing again.

In the receding background two older women
chat about the weather or perhaps the scullery maid's
scandalous behavior.

Only the tiny blonde Infanta seems prepared for portraiture:
striking a pose, aware of her looks and her pedigree,
as a kneeling attendant
prepares to adjust her charge's hair, just so.

And the royal dwarf, in a dress as pretty
as she is ugly,
keeps her attention focused on her masters,
just beyond the frame.

Meanwhile, the mirror at the back of the room
dimly reflects this royal couple
who are sitting for their picture
but are not, it seems, the real subjects.

Off-center, beyond the back of his canvas frame,
occupying the left quarter of the painting, stands the primary focus.
Diego Velazquez, painter to King Philip of Spain,
intently surveys the far distance,
relaxed fingers holding the charged brush.

Diego Velazquez prepares a brushstroke....
Or is he the subject? Perhaps not.
For the painter seems intent on something else
that we cannot see, and neglects
the jumble of figures at his feet.

He seems to look past even the royals themselves
and pays no attention to the overly busy maids,
or the preening Infanta, the drowsy cur,
or the dwarf in the purple crepe dress.

But Diego Velazquez nevertheless prepares a brushstroke...

In fact, he starts to draw Life itself,
beyond this canvas, the mirrored reflections, these flecks of paint:
beyond Time itself.

He looks out at the viewer, surprised by nothing,
only preparing his brushstroke: his triumph of art over life.

Perhaps, in this intent, he looks even into the present, into this room,
sees Luke once again coolly adjusting his hair, just so;
Jeff dreaming of distant armadas and battles at sea;
Brian thinking chess is definitely more exciting than this;
and Patrick deciding that novels are better than poems,
while Dylan wonders what Yoomie is doing tonight.

And why not? It is just as possible a subject
as all the others that have passed before this rectangular frame
in four centuries,
as Diego Velazquez prepares his brushstroke.

And imagination may stretch further than our immediate view
and also perceive Rob and his girlfriend
under the billion stars of Arhanghai,
where the immense weight of the backlit sky
crushes all human purpose to Gobi dust.

At the same time, there is this one small interesting detail
where the young colt,
in its corral on the darkening steppe,
whinnies in the receding light
cuddling next to the indulgent mare
while Diego Velazquez prepares another brushstroke.

– Mark Minton

The Excitable Kenneth Koch [by Luke Meinzen]

Luke Meizen, one of our Mongolia-based correspondents, sends this poem, inspired by his readings of Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch:

To Excitable Kenneth Koch

You wouldn't know me, uh, sir. I was introduced
by Frank O'Hara. He didn't mean
for it to happen (you knew before I did
that he's dead). I think he liked you.
I was introduced again by Mark.
His name is less famous, but he
had a lot more to say. He was saying it,
one time, when I went downstairs to fetch more whiskey
and to look in the bathroom mirror.
There are several panes of glass.
In that bathroom, I can see the back of my head so
I like to evaluate my haircut and posture
before I climb back up to the bookshelf.
Had we not met, I would not have thought
this a poetic detail. Now I do.
There it was.

You are gloriously unfamiliar, a friend of a friend
of a generation. I have known writers before -
there was Jack, first, my mad burning mentor.
That relationship made me more important
to myself when I realized I hadn't done anything yet.
That relationship was subject to revision
I also had Bruce. We met by accident, a friend
again. He came along on other accidents
that I have since re-named adventures.
They both died young. My literary friendships
tend to.
Mr. Koch, how did you live so long.
I am only beginning to consider the proposition
of growing so old.

What I have learned, in passing,
in glimpses, as if from many headlines
on a blocks' worth of newsstands,
I learned while building the somber foundation
of a monument to myself. When I heard
what I heard, and I heard it from you,
I chortled, no, I giggled, and went about
constructing a wink. So, you,
Excitable Kenneth Koch, the missionaries you made,
and the list of names in which I found you
are the reasons I have hung my melancholy
with little pieces of colorful string.

Ayurzana: Three Poems translated by Simon Wickham-Smith

I dream my favorite green tie
Is a hangman’s noose, and
I wake up.
It’s terribly sweet, this taste before death. . .
And it's morning.

I don’t have a tiepin to hand…
I live, disjointed from the expectations of the world.
It is not now forgotten,
         this extraordinary taste of torment.
this taste from that
        yesterday I was licking my son’s chocolaty fingers.

So everything is clear.
My morning sensitivity – your scent,
And this scent became part of me.
       Ten years following death of sorts
I'm waking up next to you.

***

weakened by the wind
     creaking moaning
           this clapperboard fence. . .

drunk in the wind
     swaying staggering
            such a roseate house. . .

striking the mind
     blowing at the heart
           such a cold wind . . .

dissipate
      from the nape of you
           such a melancholy scent. . .

ragged moon
    made drunk in the wind
           such a fleeting glance. . . 

**

Cold swallows warmth.
Clouds swallow brightness.

As much as glorious summer swells,
The season of melancholy draws ever nearer.
And just like brittle, yellow leaves,
The hair on your temples turns silver.

-- Ayurzana
(trans. by Simon Wickham-Smith)

"I Worship Sunrise": Four Poems by Ayurzana

"I Worship Sunrise": Four Poems by Gun-Aajav Ayurzana

I worship Sunrise,
Oh, my morning!
And worship Moonrise,
Oh, evening twilight!

Just one in a thousand rays
Is enough for the Light.
Time is measured
By legends of the Light.

Darkness falls to the ground,
Light flies in the sky.
The existence of light in the sky
Is known only in flight.

Through the dark blue evening
A cold wind whistles.
In the cold black sky
Red cranes fly.

__________

How old is the mosquito
Squashed between the pages
Of the ancient sacred sutra?

From which age
Did the spirit of an insect
Just fly by?

Is losing yourself
Like finding yourself?
Oh, it's raining,
The valleys and hills are white.

Oh, to run in the rain
To the foggy mountain!
Will the wind be strong enough
To turn the rain-soaked page?
__________

When Time takes a break
I take a deep breath,
And when it continues on
I heave a sigh.

When Time takes a break
I fall in love,
And when it continues on
I come down from Heaven.

When Time takes a break
I write poems,
And when it continues on
I drop my pen.

When Time takes a break
I open my eyes,
And when it continues on
I stare at Death.

__________

EASTERN POEM

Such happiness
To see the sunrise on the steppe!
When I feel its calm light
I forget my sorrow.

To breathe such air,
To be human is enough!
Oh...

After that, let God take his brush
And write that I'm dying.

Such truth
To hear a branch breaking somewhere!

-- translated by the author and Christopher Merrill

Ayurzana: Two Poems

Gun-Aajav Ayurzana: Two Poems

I grope in my life like a blind man.
The blind man has a cane.
I don't.

Eyes open, helpless,
In complete darkness, in the awful darkness
Of your body, like a blind man...

Somewhere a light flashed.
I asked a fortune-teller what it was.
"Your heart," he said.

__________

The sound of rain falling on the roof
The sound of rain striking the roof
The sound of sound striking the roof
Repeat the unrepeatable

The sound of rain falling on the roof
The sound of rain striking the roof
The sound of sound striking the roof
Repeat the unrepeatable

-translated by E. Sodontogos and Christopher Merrill

Ed Note: Ayurzana Gun-Aajavwas was born in the southwestern province of Mongolia Bayankhongor in 1970. He began writing poems at sixteen. After high school he went to Moscow to study at the Maxim Gorky literary institute (1988-1994), the only literary university in the socialist world.  Upon his return to Mongolia, Ayurzana became a correspondent for the state daily newspaper “The People’s Right.” He worked in journalism for seven years, four of them as editor-in-chief of the weekly publication “Yesterday” and one year as an editor of the “Daily News,” Mongolia’s highest-circulation daily newspaper. He has published six books of poetry as well as a trilogy of novels.

My Predominant Emotion in Mongolia [by Jeffrey Stasz]

     Footed-pajamas fully zipped; firmly stowed in the bottom bunk, I say my goodnights as mother turns out the light. In the dark, I strain my eyes to wonder at the rocket ships and moons decorating the underside of the mattress above me. I sing songs, and talk to my dog Adelaide, who will soon desert me for my sister’s room and a quiet night’s sleep. I do anything to forestall the gnawing cowardice that accompanies a fear of the dark. It is in vain. Soon, phantoms, monsters and dread surround me, speaking a universal tongue: menace. I cry out and the light returns thus completing a nightly ritual.
     A year later, the yellow Lilly replaced the black Adelaide. Lilly liked to talk preferring my nervous ramblings to the silence of the rest of the house. She was a yellow-snoring ball of reassurance. Her arrival ended the nightly ritual, her snores drowned out the clamor. Together we learned the loopy thrill of being brave.
     Last night I latched the door of my ping and bolted the “Alice in Wonderland” door of my Ger. I outgrew my pajamas twenty years ago so I slept in cotton boxers. The flags of my country and my new home have replaced the rocket ships and moons above my bed. In the dark, I strain less hard to see them; I sing fewer songs. Adelaide is gone. Lilly is gone too. However, the phantoms, monsters and dread still creep from the moldy corners of my mind. In the dark, with time on their side they broadside me with insecurities fired on the tack from the mid-ship-38 pounders, the same guns that set Her Majesty’s Navy to flight.
     Twenty years and seven thousand miles later and I am still a kid, afraid of the dark, bouncing from one loopy thrill to the other. Life here? A mad dash. Like a junkie looking for his next fix, I ride horses with Gana and slaughter sheep with Mogi and drink vodka with Magnai, Naraa, and a host of other Bats and Sitsiks, all in the hopes of recreating that yellow-snoring ball of reassurance that encouraged those early bouts of bravery.
     I agonize over easy decisions: camping or stay home? And I reprimand myself for the sorriest of mistakes: two hours of South Park was a waste of time. I dash from plan to plan: extend? Business School? The tropics? and I spend hours writing to-do lists on calendars I will never look at again.
Amidst the fury of my twenties –my least luminant decade – I write letters and stare, child like, at dust storms coming across the Steppe. I share tea with grandmothers who tell me about their grandchildren and great grandchildren and about being young in a world even more wild than it is today. With them, I think of my own grandmother who also drinks tea, and the occasional bourbon, with adopted twenty-somethings who stare, child like, at weather coming across the Atlantic. The serene company of grandmothers grants a reprieve from the dark and the broadsides. They are the yellow-snoring ball of reassurance.
     But for me the tea must end. I have not yet secured enough years to warrant a second cup
and so I take my leave, returning to the dark and the hail of 38 pounders fired on the tack.

Blog-O-Riffic [by Jeffrey Stasz]

The Mongolian steppe in the summer is awash in color. The spring rains, cold though they are, bring forth a dizzying array of blues, purples, reds, yellows and greens and the smell of lavender and jasmine mix sweetly with the scent of sweaty animals. My brother and I rise early to drive the yaks, sheep, and goats out to their daily pasture. What little dew there is clings precariously to my saddle as my horse, Lunchbox, chomps idly at his bit. We mount and in a flash we are galloping across the steppe, racing toward the distant collision of color and sky. We reign in the horses and swing back to get the animals. The initial gallop was just to settle our beasts into a long days work.
We drive the animals about ten kilometers southwest. Here, the large river that bisects my town flattens out, shooting precious tentacles of water across the constantly too dry Steppe. We sweep through the herd a last time, checking to see if any of them have come up lame and to check on the condition of the newly born animals. All seems well so we turn back to our camp.
Again, we let the horses run.
Only a year ago, this morning would have terrified me. Lunchbox threw me twice last summer and both times were at less than a gallop. The first time he was just being ornery and took a hard right toward a fence, sending me off his dusty left flank. The second time, he anticipated a “yak head fake” that I did not (yes, yaks throw head fakes) and I went flying off his right flank. Today, I am confident in my saddle and happy to let the fresh morning air poor down my lungs.
It takes us forty minutes to return to the camp and de-saddle our horses. The steam rising off Lunchbox reminds me of the dying remainders of a ger fire. I lead Lunchbox to the river and he takes a long drink. My brother and I tie off our horses and return to the center of camp which is a semi-circle of small gers with a large circular cook house in the middle.
I go in to make coffee and chat with any participant of the perpetual hive of activity that is the cook house. My sister asks me how I slept as she heaves a ten gallon bucket of fermenting mare’s milk to the “dairy ger”. She seems exasperated, but then again, all seventeen year old girls seem exasperated. The other workers greet me warmly and my host Dad greets me with his routinely enthusiastic English phrases, limited to, “Hello, how are you?” I smile and answer in Mongolian that I am fine and that this morning’s ride was extra fine.
I take my coffee back to my ger and slide my laptop aside to make room for the stack of GMAT books that have been eyeing me for a week. I begin where I left off: data sufficiency questions. The juxtaposition is not lost on me. I am aware that I live in a small felt tent. The same tent that people have been living in for eight hundred years. Nor does the irony of herding yaks as preparation for my GMAT morning study session elude me. Rather, I have come to live with it. These are just two more of the many contradictions that compose my life.
In the winter I split wood and heat my house with a wood stove, I then fire up my laptop and write lesson plans. My students can be seen riding horses to school while using their cell phones to check out Akon’s latest music video. We have a computer lab but no chalk. A projector but intermittent power, the list goes on and on.
After a while the contradictions become less abnormal, less glaring. And a little time after that, they become normal. “Of course I will herd yaks before studying” I think, “how else would I do it?” America fades further and further into my memory and sometimes I catch myself dreading the day I will have to leave my ger, my family, my horse, and my village. That is however, the nature of the beast. Or so I am told.

Postcard Home [by Jeffrey Stasz]

Dear LH,
How nice of you to stop and nap with me the other day. I know you were busy and were expecting my return but I was tired. The four kilometer walk from where my Mongolian family had moved my house for the summer to town had been unusually arduous. But I needed groceries and my mail and a taxi is too expensive. The night before, up on the mountain, it had rained. So today my usual crossing point was un-fordable and I had to go much further up the river, making the trip longer. Moreover, I have not been around town for a while so I had to stop and exchange the typical greetings with everyone I saw (How are you summering? Are your animals fattening well? How is your body? And so on). Ulizma’s new child is well by the way. I had a ton of mail which was great.
By the river, under the taller oaks and leafy trees, where you found me, is one of my favorite places to steal an hours or so rest. And so I lay down. And along you came! Wearing your white dress, my favorite, the one you wore the night I left. And you were clean! Not the perfumed clean that Sephora pushes, but the freshly showered and walked through a meadow clean. Matching curves to occupied space, we lay. We lay by the wide part of the river. We lay under the leafy green river oaks who politely
sift the blue of the steppe sky, allowing only the bluest parts to come through. We lay in the
thyme, and the lavender, and the grass. Among the jack in the boxes, and the red flowers whose
name I can’t remember. We lay as the yaks wandered by and ate some of the flowers and the
grass in which, on another day, we may get to lay in again.
I drifted off, suspended, flirting with consciousness and sleep. I thought of my students who had moved with their herd to the country side for the summer. They were undoubtedly tending sheep and fermenting mare’s milk and fetching water. For a time I was there. I thought of teaching and my classroom in January where (after the coal shovelers had gotten too drunk to shovel…again) I seriously considered burning my desk to make my room a little warmer. And for a time I was there as well. I thought of our old city and late night whispers in closed city parks and for a time I was there too.
I woke. And some sly trick of geography and circumstance had ferried you away from me. All that remained was your smell – faintly – on my chest where your head usually lay.
Anyhow…I have to run but I did want to thank you for the company.

-- JDS

Class Time [by Jeffrey Stasz]

Today is our final day of posts from our Mongolia-based correspondents.  Jeffrey Stasz (left, photo by Robert Shore) is without internet access this week so he sent his posts in early.  We'll put them up throughout the day.  Check back often.  --sdh

Standing at the front of the class, chalk in hand I am explaining the present continuous tense to thirteen teenagers. The boy in the corner is clearly more interested in the long underwear that is peeking above the pant line of the girl sitting two rows across. She is unaware of her long underwear.  However, even if she were, she would probably be too interested in the new cell phone of her desk partner to do anything about it. The older woman that walks into the class asks if I will put down my chalk and open the internet café for a little bit. That I am otherwise engaged is either lost on her, or irrelevant.

Both the chalk and I are shivering slightly. Today I put on: light weight thermal bottoms, heavy weight thermal bottoms, heavy weight thermal top, wool pants, button down shirt, wool sports coat, heavy winter over coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. I have removed the gloves to wield the chalk.

Discouraged, I try to see through the six inches of ice that have accumulated on the inner window. Discouraged, I try to see past the peeking boy and the glitter of the cell phone.
Discouraged, I try to remember what I said to the recruiter to let me voluntarily do this.
Discouraged, I think back to the decision to talk to the recruiter in the first place.

A question erupts from a giggle “So teacher…I am loving my boy friend… right?” The chalk mulls it over for a minute.

I’ll take it.