DUJIE TAHAT, "THIS IS THE LAST TIME" (Issue 18)

THIS IS THE LAST TIME

you’ll read this for the first time

& think this immigrant doesn’t flock
             like the rest of his sound,
                                                     but then again,
                                                     he’s cranking away
             at the Victrola & you’re about
to place your finger on the tip
             of your tongue
                                      shaped in the name of the song
                          which was only supposed to be
background music for this epithalamion,
             this dirge,
             this glow, this urge,
             this object permanence,
                          obscured by its chiaroscuro
             carrying on,
                                my wayward daughter
             one day will read this & it will mean something
                                                                                          new
                                                                   all over again.
                                                     I know
                              it’s a cheap trick—
             all this jostling & gesturing
into the wildness
             to see the line of a horizon
                                                        break yet again,
                                      but what can I say
that hasn’t been said or stolen
             into the night by an open car
                                                             window
humming on a highway already, sucking mouth
out of a sleeping child’s air
             like it wasn’t ever
                                           supposed to be there.

ABOUT THE POET

Dujie Tahat’s is a Filipino-Jordanian immigrant living in Washington state. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Southeast Review, Narrative, Nashville Review, Shenandoah, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere. Dujie has earned fellowships from the Richard Hugo House and Jack Straw Writing Program. He serves as a poetry editor for Moss and Homology Lit and cohosts The Poet Salon podcast. He got his start as a Seattle Poetry Slam Finalist, a collegiate grand slam champion, and Seattle Youth Speaks Grand Slam Champion, representing Seattle at HBO’s Brave New Voices.

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