TWO SMALL FANS

With two small fans
our room sounds like
a 727 Whisper-Jet
and we are halfway
to the Virgin Islands
for our honeymoon.
A movie star’s boat
is anchored offshore
and his plate piled
with napoleons and
creampuffs directs
us to check out his
gut. What we adore
most are breakfast
and the newspaper
quietly delivered to
our surfside cabana
and trying to keep
up with eagle rays
in the lagoons. Oh,
we are not ready to
go home! All that
awaits us two floors
up from the bakery
is a sweltry studio
apartment whose
single saving grace
is its two small fans.

UNTITLED

we admire the near-delicacy
with which a red-tailed hawk
tears out the choicest tidbits
from inside a killed rat’s pelt

until there’s nothing else worth
ripping off and wriggling down
and it heaves the ransacked
carcass up and wolfs it whole

---

IMAGE THE SCAVENGER’S ECSTASY

as he lowers himself into the bin
and opens up the first big bag—
this, after a week of mostly slugs
and chewing over last year’s pretty
much worked-over hickory nuts.

Each night he tries the Italian deli’s
door and tonight it was unlocked—
each night he propositions every
girl in the shot-&-beer joint and
tonight every one of them said yes.

He doesn’t need an eternity of bliss.
One single glorious night like this,
and then each night recalling it,
and hoping that it happens again,
is paradise enough for a raccoon.

---

COLD CHRISTMAS IN GULFPORT

Palm fronds reflected
in clear plastic taped
over the trailer window,

Grandma is by the door
decked with pine cones
super-glued to a noose,

half-toothlessly grinning
because she’s got on
her wool church coat

cordoned by one mink
with its little wizened
face stitched to its tail.

THE CAR WINDOW

shattered into empty
sunflower husks
on the macadam
and inside the bar
a woman spit glass
into a tin ashtray
and told her lover
that neither of them
was ever going to
hit the other again.

Glass: tooth (răng)

CORANACH

It didn’t seem like
it was ever
going to get dark,
but now it has,
and night exhales
the same languor.
Who could die
in the summer?
And if you did,
it would have to
be an almost
imperceptible
death as you lay
in the fragrances
of mock-orange
and honeysuckl
and drifted off
in a similar way.
Do not go gentle,
though. It is better
you wait until fall
with its barreling
days and brisk
nights that hurt.

AFTER LEARNING

after learning
the hard way
that her tenth
consecutive
boyfriend was
an ugly drunk

her friend urged
her to change
her luck by
dating people
she did not
find attractive

but the upshot
was a better
appreciation
of the drunks

CRABBING

Thumb and forefinger
to thumb and forefinger,
he gives me the fulcrum
of the kite string.
A jumble lies on the sand;
a taut five feet slants
to the inlet’s dark sheet.

Thumb and forefinger
over thumb and forefinger,
I start to inch it up.

And inch it up.

And inch it up.

And inch it up.

Exactly how deep is this
motherfucking bay?
Or how long till the crab
is sated of the bait?
Or will it, claw to claw,
transfer the tautness
to a fellow crab and go?

EARLIER A ROBIN’S HEAD

Earlier a robin’s head
on the sidewalk in Bath,
tonight a squirrel’s tail
on the porch at home.
The town and country
witch is getting sloppy
one way or the other
so let’s cross our fingers
these are spare parts
spilling from her sack
and not components
of the spell that gets us
out of bed tomorrow.

STAR APPLE

the star apple
cupped in her scaly
gray-nailed hand is
yours for the taking
no strings attached

you burst into tears
and then wake up
to the resumption
of indelible pain

Tom Riordan lives in New Jersey in the U.S. with his wife and 3 children. He gardens, teaches English, cooks and cleans, runs the Environment Commission in his town, and writes.

Page Cover: Farideh Lashai, Untitled (1977).
Image: Courtesy of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

Và giựt nhẹ

Và giựt nhẹ
Và giựt nhẹ.
Không biết cái vịnh chết
tiệt này chính xác sâu
thế nào? Hoặc bao lâu
cho đến khi con cua
no mồi? Hoặc nó sẽ,
bằng càng với càng, chuyển
cái dây câu này tới
một bạn cua rồi đi?

---

TRƯỚC TIÊN LÀ ĐẦU CON CHIM MỎ ĐỎ

Trước tiên là đầu con chim mỏ
đỏ trên lề đường ở thành phố
Bath (sau đó) tối nay là đuôi
con sóc nơi mái hiên nhà.
Mụ phù thủy nửa quê nửa chợ
cẩu thả (đánh rơi ra) bằng
cách này hay cách khác bởi thế
hãy cầu mong những bộ phận
dư thừa này lọt ra từ túi
sách (trên vai) của mụ không phải
là thành phần của lá bùa mê
làm chúng ta thức giấc ngày mai.

---

VÚ SỮA

trái vú sữa nằm trong
lòng bàn tay tróc vẩy
với móng tay màu xám
của bà ta tặng không
cho bạn vô điều kiện
bạn bật khóc và rồi
thức giấc để bắt đầu
trở lại cơn đau không
thể nào gột bỏ được

Khế Iêm dịch

Tom Riordan sống ở tiểu bang New Jersey với vợ và 3 con. Ông làm vườn, dạy Anh ngữ, nấu nướng dọn dẹp, điều hành Ủy Ban Môi Trường trong thị xã, và viết.