Poem Post: Tracy Fuad, "Object Exercise"

[radiantfracture]

This comes from Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (2025, Ed. Holly Mason Badra), which I am reading and getting much from.

Object Exercise

First you must gather the objects.
Open the polish and polish each object
until every object is coded in polish,
a thin film that takes on the shape
of the object. Then dissect every
object with a circumstantial blade.
When the object is fully dissected,
remake it, but more in your image.
Then use concise scissors to prune
the object, removing what wilts
or yellows. Turn up the object
sound. Then dissect again. Hold
each piece to check for resistance:
if it withers, it's an object.
If it's shudders, it's a subject.

Comments

[sovay]

If it's shudders, it's a subject.

That's good and I'd never read it before.

[radiantfracture]

Yes, I thought it was a powerful final couplet.

reminds me of making an object..

[haertstitch]

put it down,
does it stand
does it roll
does it blow away