Talin Tahajian: No Vacancy by

You say, look at me, and I say,

this is a house, and when you say

that bellboys cannot be counted

and preserved between the folds

of your neck, I say that we should

name the rooms on the sixth floor

after the presses and magazines

and professors who never liked us,

and you mention Little, Brown & Co.

and Dr. Greene, and suddenly

we are coughing colors, and you

tell me that you don’t appreciate

waking up to cold mugs of coffee,

unsweetened because this honey

is stilted with flies, black blood

mushrooming in our peach tea

like storm clouds, and I am sorry

about anemia, lost jobs, living

in a hotel room for fifty-one days,

stale mornings spent taping together

playing cards, turning to you

and pleading, this is a house.

This poem appeared in WordRiot blog.

Talin Tahajian: IMAGE AS FISHMONGERS

I have seen you as fishmongers

in an effort to forget. Twelve of them

selling thick pearls of meat.

All of them are you. Headless

as prawn. Bass filleted & frozen, muscle

grey as dusk. I know what it is like

to lie naked across ice, feel flesh slice.

I pretend to know.

      • •

I want to know what you passed into my mouth

as you slid upward, chest first. I remember a fisherman

unloading his boat. Herring packed

into a tackle box, snug bodies. Eyes slick,

glossy. Their silver is something I want to ingest.

I bite their eyelids softly, pull them shut.

      • •

There is nothing here

that I want to remember as fact. It is a fact

that every person believes they are more than a god.

That is the part of me you harpooned. Cut your name into.

This poem appeared in Kenyon Review

Talin Tahajian: MUSSEL

Too many times, I have watched

flesh turn. Familiar things:

a daughter cracking mussels

against the pier, mollusks alive

and smacking. Yellow meat

crushed against bedrock.

A shade of white so slight, it is what

I imagine it's like to be open, inviting.

Someday, there will be no

such thing as boneless. At night

even salt glows with the light

of a body underwater.

This poem appeared in Devil's Lake which is published twice annually at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Talin Tahajian: BAPTISM

We begin our lives by dying
& waking up again, eyes sensitive

to the kind of light that exists in places
that aren't heaven. This isn't heaven.

I like the way other countries look
after midnight. Ghosts swimming

through empty chapels. That silence
is something sacred. Too dark to see

your reflection as a god in a display
window. Glass is one of the only

honest things. I love not knowing
what it means to be innocent. I rinse

my mouth with every kind of holy
water. By that, I mean I have kissed

the mouths of so many beautiful boys.
I remember thinking or saying This

is how I want to finish my life. To unlearn
the Bible, first I would have to read it

until I understand what it means
to be a religion, to embrace that sort

of death with bright things.


This poem appeared in Devil's Lake which is published twice annually at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

TALIN TAHAJIAN: FARM BOYS

I find you swimming, cheeks flushed
            like summer squash. Your father’s screams
echo against the riverbed as he drags you
            by your earlobe from the sweet lick
of Indiana freshwater. I wish it were Thursday night
            again, Molly piercing through your flesh
with a needle from her grandmother’s sewing kit,
            with a diamond she stole from her aunt.
Now your ear bleeds, sore and crusty, diamond
            popped from its socket like an arrowhead.
Your father ripens, flesh maddened, a husk,
            the blood, war paint, water clouding like dusk.

This poem has appeared in The Adroit Journal.

Talin Tahajian: Mahlab

I stand with Grandmother, rinse
a dish with warm milk, watch yeast
froth. She cups flour in her palms,
presses it into her cuts. Claims
it clots the blood.

My father opens the door, throws
a sack of mahlab to the counter, a bible
at my back. It breaks skin. Consider
the mahaleb cherry: thin flesh, bitter
tissue, harvested for its seed. Consider
mahlab: ground seed.

Grandmother picks up the bible,
does not blink. Knuckles coated
in starch, she peels off my shirt, feels
what I cannot hide. Feels ridges.
She presses flour into the red,
swears that I will heal. Tells me
to think of men.

We watch batter swell. Consider vanilla,
butter, brandy. Consider whole cloves,
an egg yolk, a stillborn. We knead dough,
imagine rebirth.

Grandmother adds the mahlab, hands
callused from handling seed, the grit.
Votch, aghtchig. I want to understand
the bread, how to rise.


This poem has appeared online at the Columbia College's Creative Writing Young Authors website.

Talin Tahajian: Carcinoma

On Tuesdays you spat daisies, and Wednesdays
were for Chinese takeout, and the space between
the kitchen and the bedroom smells like 7:03 a.m.,

when she used to wake up and ask for pennies
and our wedding bands, and when I asked why,
you’d shake your head and hand me a papaya,

orange, medicinal, seeds like birth marks, the color
of a pill bottle. I remember when the doctor told us
that he had no prescriptions left, and you told him

that’s a shame because you love things that intensify,

like lost hair, hospital bills, plastic bags, the shade
of her November sunburn. Her funeral smelled

like peach tea, broken air conditioners, and it wasn’t
even raining, and she would’ve hated the blue bowl
of lemon drops, wrapped and dusty, and everyone

choking them down.

This poem has appeared in PANK magazine.