by Lory Bedikian

The great-great aunt plays dead

When he tries to pull the gold tooth

Out of her mouth. Not a pursing

Of the eyes. Not a sound when

He finally yanks the tooth out

From root. Who knows how much

Blood bled. Most things will never

Have answers. For example, why

Exactly Father perfectly developed

Camptocormia, his right-angled

Walk down the hall to answer

Mother’s frustrated call. Her

Refusal to help him with the cane

Or walker. Just get to the damn

Table, she most probably thought

In her own language. Armenian

Is not easy to translate when

You love someone who never

Told you their secrets. It remains

A question of the pharynx, how

Much was swallowed instead

Of spoken. A throat can become

Sand dune. If enough circulation

Or wind rules the surroundings

Anything can move. Even that

Vertebrae that we thought

Damaged for good could bring

Itself back to stand at pier’s edge.

Father, what were you looking

For at the end of your life? What

Made you think the rug, the tile

Had answers? The phonology

Of being bent seemed fair.

Avoidance began to sing. I, too,

do this all to avoid the thought:

That if you looked any of us

In the eyes, something might

Extract itself, even violently.

Even your death would suddenly

Be pronounceable and alive.

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Lory Bedikian’s collection, The Book of Lamenting, won the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Her forthcoming book, Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body, won the 2023 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize, and is forthcoming September, 2024 from the University of Nebraska Press. Bedikian’s poems received the Neruda Prize for Poetry in the 2022 Nimrod Literary Awards. Her work is included in the anthology Border Lines: Poems of Migration (KNOPF, 2020) and her manuscript-in-progress received a 2021 grant from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.