I Name Your Body (This Is Not a Poem about an Olive Tree)
hour of my exoneration
rebounding myth
sequence of senses that antler, tusk, & bone
blood & milk
almanac of unnamed moons
remnant sound of the sentient ocean
vital surrounding billow
reconciled city
near-threatened birds of the plain
headwater to mouth
the Nauset light
the darkest verb
the word for land
what I swallow when you say swallow
Issam Zineh is a Palestinian-American poet and scientist. He is author of Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022) and the chapbook The Moment of Greatest Alienation (Ethel, 2021). His poems appear in AGNI, Guernica, Gulf Coast, and Tahoma Literary Review, among others. Twitter: @izineh.
Image description: Issam, a man with medium-light skin and black-and-silver hair and beard, stands with his body toward the camera. His arms are crossed, and he is looking over his right shoulder. He has tattoos on his arms and chest. He wears a short-sleeved, collared shirt with large flowers printed on it. There are typewriters mounted on the wall behind him.
This poem first appeared in the author’s full-length poetry collection, Unceded Land (Trio House Press, 2022); find Unceded Land for sale, on Bookshop.org. This poem was republished at Poetry Online.
