Issue Twenty-Four - Summer 2014

A Basin

By A. K. Kiik

For HMK

The bees are washing themselves in honey
All night I listened through a cloth sack
A song of sour bread dunked into wine
Dark handful of grapes heavy a breast sweeter
Than ripe carried like a black sugar to the mouth
Grandmother all night I listened for your knife
To relieve the sagging vines
I listened for your fruit to crush the water underfoot
For your nipple to nurse sugar
Back to the wounded vine
Grandfather of eight legs
I listened to you pummel a basin of grapes
Your hair and beard running with cold wine with sweat
Your toes swelling over the fat of summer
The sun falling drunk and naked into your tub
Night staggering through your strip of light
Grandfather of stale bread
Grandfather reddened in ink
Frightened grandfather a wine-stained animal

Copyright 2014 Kiik

A. K. Kiik is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and Santa Clara University. He earned an MA from UC Davis where his poetics thesis was titled “THE JOY OF HUMAN SACRIFICE.” He is a current graduate student at UC San Diego where he is working on a collection of counter-internment narratives, tentatively titled, “EVERYDAY COLONIALISM.” His work has appeared or is forthcoming in iO, Washington Square, Alice Blue Review, Barge Press, The Brooklyner, Scythe, CutBank and The Masters Review. A Basin is dedicated to HMK.

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