Ghazal

Ghazal

Sito Sasieta

Be it Galatians or Ghazals, there was always a verse;
A grandfather, a pencil, a notepad, a verse.

After papas a la huancaína, & a coochie cooing of my
ribs, papapa lifts me to the stars & scribbles a verse.

A spritz of catechism & a ladle of Luther. A pot full
of Krauskopf & Schmidt & Schnitzel & verse.

The rote months of memorization! The heavy hex of
being right! An expansive life, pigeon-holed by a verse.

Oh God thirst, oh Grandpa, oh pastor & poet, oh sermons,
oh Schmidtkus, oh trochees galore. Copy & paste. A new verse

at 5 in the morning. The printer squawks & scurries. Grandpa hurries
me a fresh Word at the crack of dawn. Take & read & ink & verse.

My hermeneutics burst from the music & from the mute.
The delicious diction of my curmudgeons. Doctrine versus

trembling hands, signing broken, pointing
out the coercive person, the choking Word, the tired verse.

I stumble towards the fig tree in Ross’s orchard. Hanif’s headphones
are in my ears. I spot Mary by her blackwater pond. How averse

I’d be to poetry if these refused their Gardens of Eden! Sito’s poems
grow greenest in ancestral soil, & when tilled by a verse.

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Sito Sasieta
Writer & Caregiver

Alfonso “Sito” Sasieta is a caregiver, poet, dancer, and father. He works in a L’Arche community, near Washington DC, where adults with & without intellectual disabilities share their lives together. He has recently had poems published or forthcoming in America Media, Cold Mountain Review, Presence, Pensive, Windhover, Sojourners, The Christian Courier and elsewhere.

Photography by Evan Wise