A’Yara Stein’s most recent poem here was It’s All in the Translation (July 2011). This is an intense persona poem.
The Knight of Despair
By A’Yara Stein
By A’Yara Stein
Jesus and Judas were best friends.
A bear chained to nothing more than myself,
I should have been more like my brother
who worked in the daytime and got paid a salary,
instead of in drugs and jewelry and tips.
Subject to fits of disorganized boredom,
I scratch myself in the long night.
I lie alone, in the pale light,
180 pounds of mere matter all heartbreak and ridiculous.
By turns feckless and reckless,
my attempts to be helpful create no end of trouble;
pitied art I among snitches.
I swear what happened that April night was simple.
An empty ritual repeated with each piece of silver
counted out–almost like a dream,
illogically logical, shockingly normal.
But in this certain kind of light, this certain kind
that follows me around now all the time,
I keep hearing the silence inside my own heart.
And of course I can’t sleep.
Out among the chorfing, anonymous throng
I laugh like daybreak without fear of midnight,
indulge in and mock my own suspicions.
So little time to live a life in this desert.
Later I’ll celebrate: drinks and laughs with Maisel;
like a sultan, she adorns the walls with floating smoke.
I sniff the fire, go down to the cellar for fig preserves.
I’m a smooth operator and I’ve lied before,
but I want her to know that today
every tiny thing glitters in the shiver of my tears.
