Nostalgia Is Not the Right Word
after Thomas Sayers Ellis
I want to begin with the bang
its infinite starts
There were three families of us All pinned under
glass, rubbing powdery wings before they
No dawn was like Zeus but purple like Pluto
Bruised
Rejected & foreign
But how does a simile measure
the current between here & there?
I want to walk through mythology but first
I have to walk through my ghettoized childhood
Put on the Reebok, the Sailor Moon watch
The yellow council block, the balcony piled
with Aldi bags, Jamal’s swampy eyes
A wise man once said
The warm thigh of Johnny I am entropy:
I am
Warmth is a contiguity of friction
Where does it hurt? Where are you from—
What is your home? Who
I am trying to return to
I’ve never been Stop saying shellfire—
Often we drowned pigeons in the canal
by which I mean
mostly we dreamt of bombs
Why is your hand like this
When did it
Every moth in my mouth tastes of years
without music Madar’s knees, Mazar-e-Sharif, the sun
on my cheek, yes, it was
soft-scented traffic… & then they
Now I have done it again
I let the line walk away from me
Like a childhood song not
You see, you see
This is how it is about place
Each one a genesis I mean bombs
I mean bangs Their little sparks—
Their His eyes
Something about all those wings under glass
This is how it is about us
You flee into metaphor but you return
with another moth
flapping inside your throat
It curls itself
from the black in your mouth
whispering I’m sorry
about these ghosts knocking
against your bones
by Aria Aber
its infinite starts
There were three families of us All pinned under
glass, rubbing powdery wings before they
No dawn was like Zeus but purple like Pluto
Bruised
Rejected & foreign
But how does a simile measure
the current between here & there?
I want to walk through mythology but first
I have to walk through my ghettoized childhood
Put on the Reebok, the Sailor Moon watch
The yellow council block, the balcony piled
with Aldi bags, Jamal’s swampy eyes
A wise man once said
The warm thigh of Johnny I am entropy:
I am
Warmth is a contiguity of friction
Where does it hurt? Where are you from—
What is your home? Who
I am trying to return to
I’ve never been Stop saying shellfire—
Often we drowned pigeons in the canal
by which I mean
mostly we dreamt of bombs
Why is your hand like this
When did it
Every moth in my mouth tastes of years
without music Madar’s knees, Mazar-e-Sharif, the sun
on my cheek, yes, it was
soft-scented traffic… & then they
Now I have done it again
I let the line walk away from me
Like a childhood song not
You see, you see
This is how it is about place
Each one a genesis I mean bombs
I mean bangs Their little sparks—
Their His eyes
Something about all those wings under glass
This is how it is about us
You flee into metaphor but you return
with another moth
flapping inside your throat
It curls itself
from the black in your mouth
whispering I’m sorry
about these ghosts knocking
against your bones
by Aria Aber
Aria Aber is a recent graduate from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best British Poetry 2015, Lighthouse, Wasafiri, decomP, PANK, Connotation Press and others. She is the recipient of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Poetry and a fellowship from MIEL. She serves as a poetry reader for The Adroit Journal.
