Nick Flynn
Summer 2024 | Poetry
Gaza Cento
There are the dead who sleep
in rooms you have built,
& the dead who visit their past. When
they knock, it won’t be long
until you’re sobbing in shame, attacking
your own reflection. They urge
you to welcome the bee back into your mouth
& thus produce silence. After
the rain, peaches
fall from the trees—in the company of strangers,
it’s easy to forget something. Go,
they whisper,
live behind the poison factory,
see what isn’t hard to see
in a world that doesn’t. Then
carve a door for the dead,
paint a number on it,
so they’ll know where to find you.
[composed of lines overheard on 10 may 2024 at mcnally jackson / seaport, at a reading by karla kelsy, michael chang, rebecca pinwei tseng, andrew wells, kamelya omayama youssef & nick flynn (mahmoud darwish & fady joudah were also invoked)—gathered up by nick flynn]
Nick Flynn is the author of thirteen books, including Low (Graywolf, 2023) and Some Ether (Graywolf, 2000), winner of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award. His bestselling memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (Norton, 2004) was made into a film starring Robert DeNiro (Focus Features, 2012), and has been translated into fifteen languages.