A Poet in the Customs House

Pleased by my jottings, the President
found me employment, now
I work on a civil temple on a tongue
of land that speaks the Babel
of ivory tusks, bolts of silk, cinnamon
and jasmine tea, each item to be weighed,
counted, and assessed in the definitive language
of ledgers, my eye trained to detect,
then reject, what’s tainted,
too dangerous to wave through.
While merchants line up to pay,
my mind wanders across Bosporus
of time. Today, a lamb’s wool shawl
trussed me in childhood till the sweat
began to pour: yesterday, a crystal vial released
a musky night I thought I’d stoppered.
On breaks, I need to gaze on the black,
opaque sea, breathing deeply.
But then another ship appears,
bearing poems I can’t appraise
among its dense, resplendent cargo.

(First published in “Atlanta Review”)