2 Poems by ViviEn Adamian
Ode to Witty
for Michelle Huneven
Dream of dead chickens at six in the morning
and the words that wrung out your first tears
I can’t help you with that
Michelle said they’re very vulnerable animals
but it was the first dead in years
the first night on our watch
You’re lucky whatever it was
didn’t get them all
Prayer over the garbage can
an uncanny Altadena winter
tongueless blue walking
19th century Armenian names
in the cemetery
Pre-genocide immigrants
among the necks of rocks
the color of data
maybe the flames
won’t reach them here
Who would guess a few years out
the fish
the least of our concerns
would be the lone-wild survivor
Dug up from a pool of ashes
that covered the web of stars
the orange trees and the mountains
She’s got the best kitchen in Altadena
said Michele with one L
she’s got the best damn house
in all of California we said
and dreamed up scenarios
where we got to stay in it forever
You know when they eat her feathers
that’s cannibalism
No
I don’t want to know about that
The parrot car alarms and says Jim?
in Michelle’s voice
Zorthian an old lech
Witty an aggressive pecker
These are the only clothes I own
that I owned before the fire
Someone told me
it was already starting
like Emily Dickinson’s first word
in a carriage with her nurse
at two years old
she said fire
Is this fire burning in reverse?
before I can ask
the reply comes
I have no pockets for fires
that burn in reverse
Smoke at four in the morning
your whole hometown
awash with hot history
and the rest of the chickens
cartooned into drumsticks
Counting in the dark
their cooing bodies
thinking why do they look
so white
Spiderweb of stars
and that lucky bird of prey
that attacks when the light changes
disappears
into its numbers
tHREE vILLAGES
Jane and I can’t play chess
because we have not
accepted death
The day bleeds out
pixels assembling a child’s
dismembered corpse
this is: inextinguishable fire
Jane and I stack dominoes into little cities
beautiful
and watch them collapse in the wind
the day bleeds out
and I am happy in America
Yes, take them
drink the oil and I hope
you like apricots
or maybe you prefer
white mulberries
No, please. Let me have those?
I hope your children
have all their legs
I wish you architecture
and quiet skies
A view of a mountain
No, God. Not that.
I never can tell
is the answer the ultimate violence or
the ultimate surrender?
You are the remedy
you, my enemy
world-enemy
life-enemy
In the kissing-future
you too will be happy
Vivien Adamian is an artist and writer from LA currently residing in Chicago. Her writing has appeared in the Qafiyah Review and Discount Guillotine.