American Osiris

Dead god, dead god, come alive

on the count of number five.

One, two, three, four. . .

I sense dejection in the vegetation.

I get how red a sun is going down.

And there they go, the dogs all over town,          

howling like widows. Ambush, mutilation,

dumpsites across state lines—the deed is done.

Streetlights will keep on burning all night long

in memory of you, the youth, the strong

seed-giver, the delight, the vital one.

It’s useless but I want to strew

funeral flowers—the orchid, the iris.

Traffic on the avenue

is sighing for the loss of you,

American Osiris.

I smell the crime: in Jersey there’s a scow

tugging, like rubbish, your indignant liver

up the Passaic—post-industrial river—

and all the sap in you has turned crude now

and seeps from ruptured pipes into the prairie.

Your sex is wild boars goring Arkansas.

Who axed you, handsome? Who has dumped you, raw,

on this democracy, this cemetery?

Sorrow has spread from coast to coast

like a saccharine song or seasonal virus.

You are what weighs on us the most—

darling and carcass, god and ghost,

American Osiris.

Dead god, dead god, come alive

on the count of number five.

One, two, three, four. . .

Aaron Poochigian earned a PhD in Classics from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University. His book of translations from Sappho, Stung With Love, was published by Penguin Classics in 2009, and his translation of Apollonius’ Jason and the Argonauts was released October 2014. For his work in translation he was awarded a 2010-2011 Grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. His first book of poetry, The Cosmic Purr (Able Muse Press), was published in 2012 and his second book Manhattanite, which won the 2016 Able Muse Poetry Prize, came out in December of 2017. His thriller in verse, Mr. Either/Or, was released by Etruscan Press in the fall of 2017. His work has appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry, The Paris Review and POETRY.