Albert Kapikian: Tortoiseshell

“The clever device of the lyre, it is said, was invented by Hermes”
--Philostratus of Lemnos

Soon I will be holding
(you are dying) your hand.

I could promise you that I
will not be crying,

but you are the only one to whom I
  will not lie. If my gift

is rhyme, I apologize
(in advance) for not being

able to describe that country
in verse, for I cannot

rhyme what I refuse
to rehearse.

Instead, I will sit here and spy
into each decade

with each decade’s trinket of my advance—
the Tin Man (on my windowsill),

the typewriter,
the Christmas tree,

and now, God,
the parrot.

Tenderness was not
a science—

still you graded on a curve.
It was the jump start,

the Lucretian swerve,
the Paraclete,

I didn’t deserve.


Albert K. Kapikian

Published in CEAMAG Journal 2019