{"id":16708,"date":"2013-02-04T05:00:06","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=16708"},"modified":"2013-02-04T05:00:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T13:00:48","slug":"ozone-park-has-published-one-of-my-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=16708","title":{"rendered":"Ozone Park has Published One of My Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ozone Park<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>the literary journal published by the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College in New York City, has published my poem “I Fell in Love With All That Struggled in You Not to Drown<\/a>,” Here’s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

In class, we talked fashion: piercings
\nand why men shouldn\u2019t wear thongs
\nunless they\u2019re strippers,
\n<\/i>and not one of my students
\nthought pink on a man
\ncould mean anything but gay,<\/p>\n

and I remembered\u2014
\nno, it wasn\u2019t memory;
\nyou\u2019ve never told me\u2014I imagined
\nyou getting dressed for school
\non the first day of the public womanhood
\nthe ayatollahs gave you no choice
\nbut to learn to wear.<\/p>\n

The breeze has been my lover,
\n<\/i>you recite in the mirror,
\nand the sun,<\/i>\u00a0and you
\ntuck under your chador
\nthe last few strands of hair
\nyou need to hide, check
\nthe length of your sleeves
\nand that your ankles
\nif you have to run
\nwon\u2019t emerge into light.
\nAnd I have let the ocean pull me naked to its chest,
\nand with my fingers probed the earth\u2019s flesh,
\nand filled my mouth with its fruit.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do hope you’ll go check it out. Some of the other really wonderful work I am happy to see my work appearing next to:<\/p>\n