Oceanic Read online

  love this perfume, this stink bloom

  following me now into each restaurant,

  the gym, or the bookstore where upstairs,

  a handsome brown man slides me a scoop

  of vanilla ice cream with my coffee

  and even on my first day, never asked

  if I’m from around here or just visiting.

  Bengal Tiger

  Each sun sinks itself

  in my mouth.

  Every thicket has

  a secret and

  every mighty beast

  has a soft underside.

  A chambered fist

  calls to me from

  the other side

  of this planet.

  There is no other

  arrangement of fur

  so electric, so charged

  with blood and rain.

  Each stripe becomes

  a whole fable

  with turned-down

  pages, one of those

  stories that ends

  with candy scattered,

  cookie roof collapsed—

  and a child stepping

  out of a fire, shoes

  still shiny and clean.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of Lucky Fish, winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards gold medal in poetry, At the Drive-In Volcano, winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize, and Miracle Fruit, winner of the Tupelo Press Judge’s Prize and Fore-Word Magazine’s Poetry Book of the Year. With Ross Gay, she coauthored Lace & Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens. Her awards include a Pushcart Prize and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is poetry editor of Orion magazine and has served as faculty for the Kundiman Retreat for Asian American writers. She is a professor of English and creative writing in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi.

  ALSO BY AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL

  Lace & Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens (with Ross Gay)

  Lucky Fish

  At the Drive-In Volcano

  Miracle Fruit

  Fishbone

  Acknowledgments

  Praise and gratitude to the editors of the publications where the following poems were first published, often in early forms:

  About Place Journal: “Bengal Tiger,” “Meals of Grief & Happiness,” “Self-Portrait as Scallop”

  The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day: “Chess,” “Letter to the Northern Lights,” “Upon Hearing the News You Buried Our Dog”

  AGNI: “Naming the Heartbeats,” “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance”

  Alaska Quarterly Review: “The Origin of Feathers on My Windshield”

  The American Poetry Review: “At the Pumpkin Festival My Lips Burn Bright”

  The Asian American Literary Review: “Dangerous,” “I Could Be a Whale Shark,” “In the Museum of Glass Flowers,” “When You Select the Daughter Card”

  Bellingham Review: “The Falling: George Strathakis”

  Beloit Poetry Journal: “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate One Second before Waking Up”

  Bennington Review: “One-Star Reviews of the Great Wall of China,”

  “One-Star Reviews of the Taj Mahal”

  BuzzFeed Reader: “The Body”

  Colorado Review: “Mr. Cass and the Crustaceans”

  Copper Nickel: “Andromache Begs Hector to Reconsider”

  Cream City Review: “Self-Portrait as an Egg-Tempera Illuminated Manuscript from 1352”

  CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art & Action: “Aubade with Cutlery and Crickets”

  Diode: “Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth,” “While Riding an Elephant, I Think of Unicorns”

  Drunken Boat: “Love in the Time of Swine Flu,” “Penguin Valentine”

  The Georgia Review: “In Praise of My Manicure”

  Kenyon Review Online: “Self-Portrait as C-Section Scar”

  The Margins (Asian American Writers’ Workshop): “Self-Portrait as Niagara Falls in Winter”

  Mud City Review: “Inside the Cloud Forest Dome,” “Starfish and Coffee”

  Mud Season Review: “Forsythe Avenue Haibun”

  New England Review: “The Two Times I Loved You the Most on a Farm”

  Orion: “The Pepper Kingdom”

  Oxford American: “When Lucille Bogan Sings ‘Shave ’Em Dry’”

  Poetry: “Invitation,” “Sea Church,” “Two Moths”

  Prairie Schooner: “The Pepper King Returns”

  The Rumpus: “When I Am Six”

  Sou’wester: “Flowers at the Taj Mahal”

  Terminus Magazine: “Travel Mommy Ghazal”

  Tin House: “My South,” “This Sugar”

  Virginia Quarterly Review: “The Falling: Four Who Have Intentionally Plunged Over Niagara Falls with the Hope of Surviving”

  Waxwing: “Psyche & Cupid: A Reimagining,” “Psyche Considers Her Last Letter from Cupid,” “Venus Instructing Cupid to Torment Psyche”

  *

  “Upon Hearing the News You Buried Our Dog” was selected by Sherman Alexie for The Best American Poetry 2015.

  Thanks to my parents—always first in my heart—and to Joseph O. Legaspi, Emily VanDette, Jennifer Chang, Sarah Gambito, Ross Gay, Oliver de la Paz, Patrick Rosal, Rita Dove, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Allison Joseph, Christopher Bakken, Don Share, Jim Daniels, Dorianne Laux, Kimiko Hahn, Campbell McGrath, C. Dale Young, Michael White, Sarah Messer, Kaveh Akbar, Hannah Fries, Matt de la Peña, Sharon Wong, Sara Sutherland, Americ McCullagh, Ron Degenfelder, and Deb Whitman. To the VanDette family and Iclal & Birger Vanwesenbeeck: you were the coral that held me steady no matter how rough the ocean storm. Christopher Rhodes, agent extraordinaire, thanks for your laughter and guidance. Special thanks to JoAnn DeRosa, Georgia Court, Tupelo Press, the David Citino family for their support and love after all these years, University of Arizona Poetry Center, UNC Wilmington’s MFA program, the Millay Colony, Chautauqua Writers’ Center, the MacDowell Arts Colony, Hermitage Artist Retreat, Vermont Studio Center, the American School of Switzerland and Todd Matthew, Yale-National University of Singapore and Robin Hemley, Alison Granucci, Miyako Hannan, and the fabulous crew of Blue Flower Arts, Chip Blake and the entire Orion team, the good folks at Square Books, Poetry Society of America, the Academy of American Poetry, the Poetry Foundation, Kundiman, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and Cave Canem—thank you for believing in me and my poems.

  I’m so very grateful for all the fierce poetry-warriors I’ve worked with at Copper Canyon Press, especially Kelly Forsythe, Tonaya Craft, John Pierce, Elaina Ellis, Emily Grise, and Michael Wiegers for his vision. Endless gratitude to John and Renée Grisham for the time to write and gorgeous surroundings for my whole family, and for the tremendous support and cheer from the powerhouse MFA faculty: Beth Ann Fennelly, Derrick Harriell, Matt Bondurant, Melissa Ginsburg, Chris Offutt, Kiese Laymon, Tommy Franklin, and Ann Fisher-Wirth. To Ivo Kamps, Dean Lee Cohen, and the rest of my colleagues and students at the University of Mississippi: thank you for bringing me home.

  Pascal & Jasper: when people ask what took so long to write this book, I say I was happily working on you two—the two best poems I’ll ever have a hand in shaping. Being your mother is the most important work and honor of my lifetime.

  Dustin: My favorite place on the planet is wherever you are. Thank you, Love, green-eyed protector of my art and my heart.

  Copyright 2018 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

  All rights reserved

  Cover art: Starfish Undersea, Tamás Kovács / EyeEm / Getty Images

  ISBN: 978-1-55659-526-4

  eISBN: 978-1-61932-176-2

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  Lannan Literary Selections

  For two decades Lannan Foundation has supported the publication and distribution of exceptional literary works. Copper Canyon Press gratefully acknowledges their support.

  LANNAN LITERARY SELECTIONS 2018

  Sherwin Bitsui, Dissolve

  Jenny George, The Dream of Reason

  Ha Jin, A Distant Center

  Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Oceanic

  C.D. Wright, Casting Deep Shade

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