Vartan Mamikonian in the City of the Future
Arthur Kayzakian
Vartan unfolds the flag and leaves it on a gray cluster of rocks.
He feels sadness and thinks to himself:
Theory 1: my life is an investigation of red that dripped on my wings and left me.
In my attempt to calculate the fallen bodies of my army
I’ve learned to leave intelligence to the rain.
Theory 2: my masculinity squanders through the corridors in the age of gentlemen—
when I stroll through the bar, past the pool tables and women smoking cigarettes,
I’m a stray dog. They can smell the rain on my clothes.
Theory 3: I was supposed to go to Heaven, but I have landed in a ravenous city. When
it rains the windows orange, and I hear my mother call my name. I have seen
her voice in strangers, ones I’ve wanted to kiss. The taste of a dream in my mouth when I wake.
Theory 4: though my role in being free has more to do with wine and sleep,
I have always wanted to be the rain before it hits the ground.
Theory 5: the difference between invisibility and exile is how much I drink tonight:
a blue concoction of wine and saliva soaked in my beard.
When I try to run my fingers across a harp, I fear I will die before I find its melody.
about the writer
Arthur Kayzakian is a poet, teacher, and an MFA graduate from SDSU. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International. His chapbook, My Burning City, was a finalist for the Locked Horn Press Chapbook Prize and Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize. He is a recipient of the Minas Savvas Fellowship, and his poems and translations have appeared in or are forthcoming from several publications including Rise Up Review, Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, Poetry International, Chicago Review, Locked Horn Press and Prairie Schooner.