Rebecca Ruth Gould is the author of the poetry collection Cityscapes (Alien Buddha Press, forthcoming in 2019), Writers & Rebels (Yale University Pres), and translator of After Tomorrow the Days Disappear: Ghazals and Other Poems of Hasan Sijzi of Delhi (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and The Death of Bagrat Zakharych and other Stories by Vazha-Pshavela (Paper & Ink, 2019). A Pushcart Prize nominee, she was a finalist for the Luminaire Award for Best Poetry (2017) and for Lunch Ticket’s Gabo Prize (2017).
Poets Resist
Edited by Michael Carter
August 8, 2019
Rebecca Ruth Gould
Small Town Tyranny
When they bug our rooms
& surveil our emails,
my love for you opens
like a Venus fly trap.
My lips grasp your kiss
before it vanishes in polluted air.
Even when the state holds us in its grip,
the tenderness of your fingertips
lingers on my breast.
I fear what will happen
when you cross the threshold,
seeking refuge in my body.
Will the sentries of sovereignty
unearth the shards of our intimacy
scavenged from our paper scraps —
I told you to burn them —
Will banishment
be our punishment?
Will the bureaucrats
use our love to proclaim the victory
of their provincial tyrannies,
just as they hang
dead bodies in the public square:
to terrify lovers everywhere?
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.