Arizona Poets is a series featuring 20 poets from Arizona in honor of our 60th Anniversary. These poets have all visited the Poetry Center and recordings of those visits are available in our audiovisual archive, Voca. Click here to learn more about our anniversary and here to see the rest of this series. 

Rebecca Seiferle was Tucson’s Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2016. She is the author of four poetry collections, including her most recent, Wild Tongue. A noted translator from the Spanish, she has been the recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, the Western States Book Award, and many others.

See more of Seiferle's work on Voca.

 

ISHMAEL REMEMBERS ABRAHAM

In life, he was so quiet, he often seemed dead.

Now, in death, he is loud

with life. His mouth is filling

the bowl again with nails. Translating

is as large as its contents. My arms

weakened, my shoulders are melting

at the stubbornness of it all.

His feet are growing more distant.

He continues to sand his nails.

Shadows resume flying into the house.

What do I know of my father?

He never gave me heartstrings,

only all that I could bear into that desert

where my mother was drowning in a well.

 

From Bitters. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, ©2001. Reproduced by permission of Copper Canyon Press.