THE POEM IS WHERE I KILL MY DARLINGS

                    by Dujie Tahat 

So I invite my sister into the room.
                        My sister whose name means precious 
in the language of this poem cannot be
                        called upon at this moment because we are 

not strictly speaking or loosely even 
                        conversing about the way Pops tongued
the edges of a spoon after every meal,
                        convinced it was a purely American man-

nerism that conveyed everyone’s sense of
                        beauty. American men, he’d say, know
enough of duty to kill the beloved 
                        in a language cast across the crooning 

distance of every immigrant’s wish shaped 
                        like some body of water. My little sister
slowly sips her broth, and it doesn’t occur 
                        to me to ask her to paint my nails 

until we are so far apart. My dearest 
                        sister, all the selves I’ve drowned to be 
here know exactly where I’ve hidden every 
                        word of the poem you’re not reading. Find

them tucked behind the stove at the first
                        house, buried beneath the dogwood tree,
tangled in the rose hips. The lilac’s dead
                        ​after only two weeks in bloom, and I’d kill you

to keep them withered, passed, rust.






​

photo by Naomi Ishisaka

Dujie Tahat is a Filipino-Jordanian immigrant living in Washington state. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Sugar House Review, The Journal, The Southeast Review, Narrative, Bennington Review, Asian American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Dujie has earned fellowships from Hugo House, Jack Straw Writing Program, and the Poetry Foundation, as well as a work-study scholarship from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He serves as a poetry editor for Moss and Homology Lit and cohosts The Poet Salon podcast.