Poem-a-Day - "Triptych" by Sherwin Bitsui

December 6, 2022

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Triptych

Sherwin Bitsui

His wind-swirled fingertips
untangle the roots of salt water,
thorned with wrens

pecking at roans
whipping their manes
toward some new sunlight,
some new charred horse bit’s history.

Cornered into being a son
he should have never
left a snow-tipped leaf’s edge

in the hillside
where a barren cloud’s porous skull
keeps a winter house.

—

Coyote, open-jawed,
limp shoulder against his ear,
its silhouette: midnight blue—
a satchel of stars
where its tail snaps awake.

—

A knot of lung steam
behind his ribs;
a meteor charring white
over yellowing aspen;

he reaches down,
loosens shoelaces—
wind-dried roots unfurl,
his new name: seven times his height.

His knees press light to dark,
creasing them over and over
until his face smears and fades.

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“Some of my new poems feel like paintings, so I titled this piece ‘Triptych.’ The movements in each recent poem have slowed down, contrasting the kinetic quality of my earlier book-length poems, Dissolve and Flood Song. In this image, a recurring figure (sometimes the speaker) is shown with Coyote, a trickster in Navajo culture, wounded and slumped over his shoulder, its tail snapping awake when it senses the stars it stole from the night sky. In my poems, I may have finally found this elusive figure/speaker; however, in the end, he makes ritual gestures that allow him to escape again.”
—Sherwin Bitsui

Sherwin Bitsui is a Diné poet and the author of Dissolve (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), among other titles. The recipient of support from the Whiting Foundation, the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, and the Lannan Foundation, he is an associate professor of English at Northern Arizona University. He lives in Dinétah, otherwise known as the Navajo Nation.

Dissolve
(Copper Canyon Press, 2019)

“Hoktvlwv’s Crow” by Jennifer Foerster
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“Ceremony for Remembering the Doorless World” by Aracelis Girmay
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Thanks to Arthur Sze, author of Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Sze’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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