4 poems
private prayer
god is fire
the fuel
the oxygen
the heat
god is three just the same
even when you’re charred with the flames of hell
god is still with you,
and he will never leave you,
doxa patri ke eioa ke agio pnevmati
my father of confession told me this when i was a boy.
i told him i was scared of god
how the dead body nailed to wooden planks at the altar
frightens me
his blood-covered eyes
always feel like they are following
he said,
they are
be afraid
love the fear he gives you
be thankful for it
vespers
there is always an ostrich egg hanging before the main sanctuary door.
the monks sift through the desert for them. the eggs must be rotten from within and the only
way to make sure of it is to drill a hole in the top and drain it like a vein. then the eggs are
polished before being placed in a leather net woven with coptic crosses. abouna said the egg
is meant to symbolize the people that appear pure on the outside but are rotten within; the
people at church who sit in the front row smiling at god, knowing they will sin once they go
home.
i remember staring at the hanging ostrich egg
making the sign of cross with my right hand
positive i was one of them
rotting with sin
wishing for god to hang me in the altar
and drain me like a vein
dear diary
a white writer said
i was lucky to have all this culture to write about
i was a performance piece to him
i was art
sexy/colorful/exotic/spotted/loud like a misplaced auxiliary tip
the kind of art you look at and say
i could have done that if...
but he doesn’t know
this culture
is all
burnt hair
american flags
and new names
dear diary
a dead pigeon almost landed on me today
fleshed out with the beak of another bird
all that remained was the skin
and purpled tissue
linking to the spine
the fragility of bone and skin
made me think about my accent
how when i asked for the bathroom in egypt
a woman responded
in english
why do you want a pigeon?
i tongued my teeth
the crunch of the skull
on asphalt
brought water to my mouth
the sound was crisp
like a glass bottle bouncing on a rock
without breaking
Antony Fangary is an MFA Candidate in Poetry at San Francisco State University. His Chapbook, Haram, was published by Etched Press in 2018. He was Runner-Up for the 2019 Test Site Poetry Series, a finalist for the 2019 Wabash Prize in Poetry, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and received Honorable Mention in the Ina Coothbrith Poetry Prize. His work has recently appeared in or is forthcoming in Welter, The Oakland Review, New American Writing, Waccamaw, and elsewhere.