{"product_id":"all-the-flowers-kneeling-isbn-9780143136842","title":"All the Flowers Kneeling","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the 2023 PEN Open Book Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003eEditors' Choice Pick \u003cbr\u003eNamed a Best Book of 2022 by \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Paul Tran’s debut collection of poems is indelible, this remarkable voice transforming itself as you read, eventually transforming you.” —Alexander Chee, author of \u003ci\u003eHow to Write an Autobiographical Novel\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“This powerful debut marshals narrative lyrics and stark beauty to address personal and political violence.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA profound meditation on physical, emotional, and psychological transformation in the aftermath of imperial violence and interpersonal abuse, from a poet both “tender and unflinching” (Khadijah Queen)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVisceral and astonishing, Paul Tran's debut poetry collection \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e investigates intergenerational trauma, sexual violence, and U.S. imperialism in order to radically alter our understanding of freedom, power, and control. In poems of desire, gender, bodies, legacies, and imagined futures, Tran’s poems elucidate the complex and harrowing processes of reckoning and recovery, enhanced by innovative poetic forms that mirror the nonlinear emotional and psychological experiences of trauma survivors. At once grand and intimate, commanding and deeply vulnerable, \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling \u003c\/i\u003erevels in rediscovering and reconfiguring the self, and ultimately becomes an essential testament to the human capacity for resilience, endurance, and love.\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] powerful exploration of healing . . . This book is an honest account of the role one can play in pushing forward their own grief – and it teaches us, the readers, to be free.” \u003cb\u003e—NPR, “Books We Love”\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In dramatic yet precise poems like 'Bioluminescence,' this début collection transforms trauma into a site of self-invention. Tran plumbs myth and history alongside personal experience—as a descendant of Vietnamese refugees, as a rape survivor, and foremost as an artist—to achieve an exquisite lyricism.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003e“\u003c\/b\u003eThe Best Books of 2022\u003cb\u003e”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[F]ull of writing about writing, about poetry as meaning-making, making as meaning . . . elegantly structured . . . There is doubt here, an ambivalent dance with beauty, a resistance to aestheticizing trauma—while one poem asks if 'elegance' is 'revenge,' others, after Randall Jarrell, question the possibility of transforming pain.” \u003cb\u003e—Elisa Gabbert, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Here, imagery is both the language of survival and the language of escape.”\u003cb\u003e —Victoria Chang, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] radiant debut collection . . . Tran is brilliant at evoking the ways in which the strata of selfhood illuminate one another . . . mesmerizing, multi-part poem[s] […]articulate, revise, and juxtapose the tales that compose Tran’s identity: Vietnamese parents exiled by the American war, remnants of Buddhist faith, landscapes harried by fiery Santa Ana winds, coming of age as transgender and queer, and the speaker’s attraction to men who are, by turns, gods, masters, and perpetrators of unspeakable violations . . . Tran’s poetry finds its desideratum in the eternal pursuit of self-transcendence.”\u003cb\u003e —\u003ci\u003eThe Poetry Foundation \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“What these [...] poems have in common is Tran’s unmistakable voice, whose thrilling, thrumming, hummable cadences testify at every turn, \u003ci\u003eI exist \u003c\/i\u003e. . . They are nothing short of a diva—doubly so, pop \u003ci\u003eand \u003c\/i\u003eoperatic. Some of their poems exude pop-royalty swagger, strutting over their line breaks, rhyming with a virtuosity matched in poetry only by Gerard Manley Hopkins . . . Other poems resemble arias in their tremendous breath control and earnest, sublime flights.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Sewanee Review \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[E]very so often, a true masterwork seemingly springs forth fully formed as if the goddess Athena, armor flashing and sword raised. Paul Tran’s full-length collection, \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e, arrived ready for war. This is an exquisitely crafted labyrinth of a book . . . Each poem stands proudly on its own but also perfectly connects to the narrative arc . . . Tran transmogrifies the grotesque to the gorgeous, the victim to the victor, the oppressed to the liberated.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Unforgettable . . . The aftermath of abuse is met head-on by subtle and delicate skill . . . [Tran's] presence on the page is instantly dramatic: there is a gorgeous sensuality to the writing . . . These poems are flamboyant in content, yet their craftsmanship is as discreet as invisible mending: you will not see the stitches unless you seek them.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] remarkable book dealing with sexual assault and a survivor’s hard-won journey toward recovery . . . For the speaker, each poem is a step away from a metaphorical death, the realm of silence and shame . . . the reader [comes] to believe that this young survivor will prevail, defined not by the wrongs done to them, but by the courage of their coming forward and giving language to the unbearable . . . [A speaker] says, ‘Yours isn’t just a story about survival...Yours is a story about love.’ The poignant pronouncement summarizes the book perfectly, and it is quite moving to witness the speaker arrive at that truth through self-empowerment and self-love.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Ultimately this is a book about reclamation, about agency in the face of abuse (at the individual level of relationships, but also at the systemic level), yes, but it’s also a book about beauty, written in beautiful language . . . [\u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e is] quite a masterful \u003ci\u003ebook.\u003c\/i\u003e It feels like Tran was thoughtful in a smart way about structure . . . This poet’s toolkit is quite remarkable, especially given that this is a first book, and it gives me such high hopes for future work by Tran.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Stunning . . . Tran’s expansiveness is a major strength: the collection refuses to be a linear roadmap, providing the reader instead with a vast exploration of the aftermath of trauma . . . Tran’s poems are an antidote to a world that asks us to prioritize progress over reflection, mastery over ambiguity . . . a necessary reminder that states of unknowing, too, are fruitful.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePloughshares \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “[A] spirit of candor and boldness drives Tran’s debut poetry collection \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e . . . bracing and innovative . . . Throughout, their elegant language traces the challenge of trying to pin down violence, to name and exorcise it in the hopes of achieving closure over a story with no resolution . . . \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling \u003c\/i\u003eis ultimately a monument to the self that persists, to the interiority that keeps trying to understand and heal. Amid very real suffering, these poems insist on new futures—especially the unknowable, mysterious, and expansive ones we make for ourselves.”\u003cb\u003e —\u003ci\u003ethem. \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With curiosity and compassion, Tran explores the contradictions of the healing process, including its nonlinear path and metamorphic nature, and interrogates their own long held ideas about identity and selfhood in order to discover new truths.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eHarper's Bazaar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] debut that is formidable in scope, form and content. Even with such complex and confident poetic structures and narratives, it’s equally intimate in its vulnerabilities and investigation of the heart, and its ultimate embrace of love. How do we name what is unutterable? How does the unutterable define us?” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eChicago Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[R]iveting . . . extraordinary . . . As powerfully as anyone I’ve ever read, Tran captures the manner in which violence inflicted can later be directed by the self upon the self . . . In the face of shame and secrecy, the poet’s candor, lyrical sophistication, and intellectual reach capture the hard work of resilience, the nobility of any soul seeking to save themselves. These poems feel necessary, as all truths are necessary. More than that, they are also beautiful in the way that only art can be simultaneously beautiful and horrific and true . . . a profound act of both grace and will. In the face of unspeakable violation, of sustained exploitation across generations, to tell one’s own story is finally 'the way out', a courageous act of self-avowal.” \u003cb\u003e—Ralph Hamilton, \u003ci\u003eRHINO Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Paul Tran’s debut collection of poems is indelible, this remarkable voice transforming itself as you read, eventually transforming you. I felt at times a passenger, a ghost, implicated, consumed, and ultimately delivered back to myself, renewed.” \u003cb\u003e—Alexander Chee, author of \u003ci\u003eHow to Write an Autobiographical Novel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Tran has] reached new heights . . . [These poems] communicate trauma, violence, lost homes, and lost selves with a tenderness and understanding that softens the rough realities they encompass . . . it’s [the] promise of survival—even during the hardest, messiest, most traumatic moments—that makes Tran’s work so moving. Even when it is difficult to read, it is beautiful.”\u003cb\u003e —\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSt. Louis Magazine\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[An] ode to survival, both painful and playful. The sheer beauty of the language in these poems left me breathless and stunned. This is definitely a collection I’ll return to again and again.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBookRiot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Tran handles the sexual violence that the speaker and their mother experience with the utmost care and tender language, conveying the collection’s themes of survival and love . . . Importantly, Tran’s debut collection testifies that the younger Vietnamese generation inherits more than war history and trauma. We receive survival tactics, lessons of pressing on and loving, from our Vietnamese elders and their journeys.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ediaCRITICS\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This much-anticipated debut from Tran investigates American imperialism, sexual assault, intergenerational trauma, and the complexities of trauma recovery . . . the poems here relating these stories are breathtaking, thought-provoking, and fearlessly honest, encapsulating tumultuous lows that will make readers shudder . . . [While] pain is vividly captured, there is also an undercurrent of strength and perseverance within the voices . . . Readers will be sure to find connection and refuge within Tran's standout collection. Highly recommended.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[S]tunning . . . Formally inventive, Tran includes a series of persona poems written from the perspective of cadavers used in sixteenth-century anatomical studies, some whose skin was supposedly used to bind books. They also introduce a new form, the hydra, which seeks to ‘resist as much as possible the psychological impulse to reach for closure and certitude.’ A darkly intelligent and exquisite debut.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist \u003c\/i\u003e(starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e“[Tran] tell[s] hard truths with clarity while exploring the legacy of American imperialism and the effects of sexual violence on the body, mind, and imagination . . . Tran’s poems are curious and searching, especially as they wrestle with the contradictions of trauma recovery . . . These poems embody a spirit of inquiry in their forms, too, many of which are Tran’s own. Each provides a unique doorway into the subject matter . . . These searingly honest, beautifully told depictions of survival and self-love will move and challenge readers.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e, Paul Tran writes from that most essential of places: the threshold. Between grief and love, past and future, trauma and luminous survival, these are searching, generous poems that enact the resilience of the human spirit, how the art of language making—story, truth telling—allows us not only to survive but thrive. This is a stunning debut.” \u003cb\u003e—Natasha Trethewey, author of \u003ci\u003eThrall\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eRavishing\u003c\/i\u003e was the word that came to my mind the first time I read Paul Tran’s impressive debut collection—\u003ci\u003eRavishing\u003c\/i\u003e, as in \u003ci\u003egorgeous\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eravishing\u003c\/i\u003e, as in \u003ci\u003ecarried away\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eto ravish\u003c\/i\u003e: to drag off by force; to plunder. \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e is an extended investigation into what William James called \u003ci\u003etraumata\u003c\/i\u003e, ‘thorns in the spirit,’ and Tran is our compassionate, exacting, guide: ‘By my own \/ Invention, I found a way. I’m no artifact. Between art and fact: I.’ Formally inventive, psychologically acute, unafraid to address the complex dynamics of relational trauma both inherited and experienced, Tran’s debut demonstrates the capacity of poetry to tell the truths which will set you free.” \u003cb\u003e—Dana Levin, author of \u003ci\u003eBanana Palace\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“All The Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e is a gorgeous debut that names and resists the difficult chiasmus of trauma. Out of violences intimate and imperial, out of survival and self-fashioning, Paul Tran sculpts new forms to contain all. This book is a richness. What a stellar poet for our day.” \u003cb\u003e—Solmaz Sharif, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLook\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“‘Who \/ can deter- \/ mine what’s inside \/ another? What is risked \/ when we enter?’ asks Paul Tran in their masterful debut \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e, an elegant meditation on many things—history, inheritance, language, trauma, how the self tricks the self, defiance—but maybe especially about penetration in its doubleness, both as violation and as relentless inquiry, an insistence on knowing. In poems as virtuosic in their thinking as in their prosodic inventiveness, Tran interrogates meaning itself. Do suffering and knowing go together—must they? Can a story about surviving be the same as a story about love? ‘Wasn’t the word for injury the same in Vietnamese as the word for love?’ Do we survive the past, or merely leave it behind? The gift of these poems lies in their heroic refusal to accept—or indeed to offer up—the usual, too-easy answers. ‘A poem is a mirror \/ I use to look \/ not at but into myself. \/ My story. \/ Mystery.’ \u003ci\u003eAll the Flowers Kneeling\u003c\/i\u003e maps the journey past bewilderment, to knowing, to, finally, the mystery of \u003ci\u003eun\u003c\/i\u003eknowing, where history falls away, where—bravely, stripped equally of regret and apology—the life we get to choose for ourselves begins.” \u003cb\u003e—Carl Phillips, author of \u003ci\u003ePale \u003ci\u003eColors in a Tall Field\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ePaul Tran \u003c\/b\u003ereceived their BA in history from Brown University and MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis, where they were the chancellor’s graduate fellow and senior poetry fellow. They have been awarded a 2021 Fellowship in Literature from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and the Discovery\/Boston Review Poetry Prize. Currently a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University, Paul’s work appears in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePoetry\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere.ORCHARD OF KNOWING\u003cbr\u003e Into the shadows I go\u003cbr\u003e and find you, gorgeous as your necklace\u003cbr\u003e of nine hundred and ninety-nine index fingers.\u003cbr\u003e All of them point at me\u003cbr\u003e as the kill to complete your mission:\u003cbr\u003e to return to your kingdom by returning to your king a thousand human sacrifices.\u003cbr\u003e You chase me. You swing your sword\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e yet I remain beyond your reach. I’ll surrender, I tell you,\u003cbr\u003e when you detach from your received idea of purpose.\u003cbr\u003e So you do. You set down your weapon.\u003cbr\u003e But I didn’t mean the blade in your hand.\u003cbr\u003e I meant the blade in your mind.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e INCIDENT REPORT\u003cbr\u003e I had a form.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eName of victim\u003c\/i\u003e. The form named me.\u003cbr\u003e The form was a form of naming. Naming gave me form.\u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eTime of incident.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Time could be measured.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The Incident could be defined. Both had a form.\u003cbr\u003e Both were a form of naming. The form said \u003ci\u003eAge\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e Age could be measured by Time.\u003cbr\u003e Age could be defined by the Incident.\u003cbr\u003e The Incident occurred on the night before my twenty-first birthday.\u003cbr\u003e The Time was night as night became night. The Incident occurred in my room at the Time. The Time occurred to me after the Incident.\u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eRace or ethnicity\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e Both were constructs. Both marked me.\u003cbr\u003e Both had a form.\u003cbr\u003e Both were a form of naming.\u003cbr\u003e Naming was marking.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I marked the form.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e(Asian. Bottom. 4 Now.)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I was a construct.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e(Looking 4 Fun. No Strings Attached.)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I was unremarkable.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eSex\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e The form listed my options.\u003cbr\u003e I had no option.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I went along with the Sex. The Sex had a Name.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e(I won’t say the Name.)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Both marked me.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eAffiliation\u003c\/i\u003e. Everything started out fine. The form said \u003ci\u003eResidence\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e I unlocked the door.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I misread \u003ci\u003eAffiliation \u003c\/i\u003eas \u003ci\u003eAffliction\u003c\/i\u003e. The Name entered.\u003cbr\u003e I misread \u003ci\u003eResidence \u003c\/i\u003eas \u003ci\u003eResidual\u003c\/i\u003e. The Name kissed me.\u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eAlcohol or drugs used at the time of incident\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e I was having a good time.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eRelationship with the assailant prior to incident\u003c\/i\u003e. I did the thing I was good at.\u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eType of coercion or force involved\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The Name hit me.\u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003ePlease specify\u003c\/i\u003e. The Name choked me.\u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003eAbility to consent was inhibited by\u003c\/i\u003e. The Name pressed a white towel against my face.\u003cbr\u003e The form said \u003ci\u003ePlease specify\u003c\/i\u003e. The towel smelled like sugar. \u003ci\u003ePlease specify.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e An ice cream truck drove by.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e(Please.)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I heard the song.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e SCHEHERAZADE\/SCHEHERAZADE\u003cbr\u003e 1\u003cbr\u003e Waking again to the spartan furnishing—brass\u003cbr\u003e knobs and coat hooks, curtain\u003cbr\u003e moth-gnawed and yellowing, plastic mattress\u003cbr\u003e atop a twin frame, photograph of me and my mother turned away, book from a class\u003cbr\u003e on empire and literature that told the story of a story-\u003cbr\u003e teller who evades the end awaiting her\u003cbr\u003e each morning by giving the king not her body but her imagination each night\u003cbr\u003e for a thousand and one nights—what humiliated me as I relived my death in that room without sunrise\u003cbr\u003e wasn’t my desire for light but my desire for more darkness.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 2\u003cbr\u003e Except for the glow of distant ships\u003cbr\u003e nothing could be seen.\u003cbr\u003e My mother, staring into\u003cbr\u003e the dark, waiting for the light\u003cbr\u003e as she waited years ago\u003cbr\u003e for another ship to take her from her\u003cbr\u003e life, adjusted her glasses.\u003cbr\u003e The past came into view:\u003cbr\u003e line of women. Line of soldiers.\u003cbr\u003e Red sand beach. Sand red with\u003cbr\u003e blood. Waves racing in.\u003cbr\u003e A soldier. His rifle. My mother\u003cbr\u003e on her knees. Waves retreating.\u003cbr\u003e Once upon a time, she began.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 3\u003cbr\u003e In a version of the story there’s no ocean. No waves racing in. No waves retreating. Their behavior neither the behavior of memory nor the past. In a version of the story\u003cbr\u003e there’s no soldier. No rifle. No bullet wound marking skull after skull like a period at the end of a sentence. No final thought for each prisoner. In a version of the story\u003cbr\u003e there’s no sand. No beach. No adjective to modify or justify the washed-away blood. No propaganda for beauty. No grotesque agenda. In a version of the story\u003cbr\u003e there’s no line of women robbed of their womanhood. No prayers. No answering bodhisattva. No means to know if no answer is the answer. In a version of the story\u003cbr\u003e there’s no ship. No going forward. No getting back. No inner compass or magnetic field or spinning needle or stars to tell my mother where she is. In a version of the story\u003cbr\u003e there’s no story. No sleepless dawn. No twilight. \u003ci\u003eNothing happened. \u003c\/i\u003eMy mother disappears whatever blights her the way she now makes her living: altering and tailoring the story\u003cbr\u003e as though the truth were trousers to be hemmed. She changes and is changed by how\u003cbr\u003e she tells her story. There is no truth. Only a version. Aversion. A verge. A vengeance.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 4\u003cbr\u003e With him I had an audience. Both heads\u003cbr\u003e at attention. Ravenous. A kind of ravishing. \u003ci\u003eTell me you like it. \u003c\/i\u003eI told him I liked it. \u003ci\u003eTell me how bad\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eyou want it. \u003c\/i\u003eI told him I wanted it bad, maybe, because I did want, badly, to\u003cbr\u003e be remade, changed so thoroughly\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e at the core of my being, the corridor through which he entered like a king,\u003cbr\u003e though he was far from a king, and in doing so\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e took me, at least part of me, with him. I was willing by then, by force, to entertain my executioner.\u003cbr\u003e I stopped punching. Kicking. Resisting\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e what I couldn’t resist. What he wanted to hear\u003cbr\u003e I told him. I made my pussy talk. I found in violence a voice.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 5\u003cbr\u003e Across the table from my mother I filled two cups with tea.\u003cbr\u003e We sat in silence. We sipped in silence.\u003cbr\u003e Her silence demanding mine.\u003cbr\u003e Some suffering we’d rather not know so we don’t suffer knowledge\u003cbr\u003e calling on us in the name of love\u003cbr\u003e to blame ourselves and to appropriate the pain\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e because we think of pain and blame\u003cbr\u003e as objects requiring purpose and possession.\u003cbr\u003e That’s not love. That has no name.\u003cbr\u003e We finished our tea. We set down our cups.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWhat do you see? \u003c\/i\u003eLeaves. Water.\u003cbr\u003e Waves. Ships. Bodies. Bullets. No shore.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 6\u003cbr\u003e Let me be clear.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Inside this story is another story. The frame is a door.\u003cbr\u003e Behind the door is another door.\u003cbr\u003e Both the room and the king are literal and figurative. To use figurative language is to make an argument.\u003cbr\u003e Like Scheherazade my mother and I cleave to and from our story. Like Scheherazade ours is a story of refrain.\u003cbr\u003e The word \u003ci\u003erefrain \u003c\/i\u003emeans not just \u003ci\u003eresist \u003c\/i\u003ebut also \u003ci\u003erepetition\u003c\/i\u003e. Repetition is emphasis.\u003cbr\u003e The emphasis being the purpose for repetition. My purpose is precision.\u003cbr\u003e Even when I’m unclear I’m deliberate.\u003cbr\u003e When I’m deliberate I’m liberated.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 7\u003cbr\u003e Night after night\u003cbr\u003e I returned to the room. Windows closed. Drapes drawn.\u003cbr\u003e Neither spring nor starlight\u003cbr\u003e to ignite the air. Only his breath lingering on the pillowcase. His face\u003cbr\u003e in the mirror like the image of a swan\u003cbr\u003e in a lake. I was the lake\u003cbr\u003e doubling and doubting his image. Could I understand what happened if I understood him? Could I slake my rage\u003cbr\u003e if I knew what the next day had planned?\u003cbr\u003e To-go containers. Emails. Pills. Laundry. More laundry.\u003cbr\u003e At the foot of the bed, I decided there had to be a way\u003cbr\u003e out. There \u003ci\u003ewas \u003c\/i\u003ethe way out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSCIENTIFIC METHOD\u003cbr\u003e Of the books he wrote about me, my favorite is the book Master had bound with my skin. \u003ci\u003eDe humani corporis fabrica. \u003c\/i\u003eAm I vain?\u003cbr\u003e Born poor. Illiterate. Oblivious to any life but this,\u003cbr\u003e never did I expect perpetuity. Never did I expect a man to want me\u003cbr\u003e the way he wanted me. Master didn’t care\u003cbr\u003e how ugly I was. My nose flat. My thighs fat. My teeth the color of horse shit. Master dug me out\u003cbr\u003e from the ground. He took my corpse into his arms. He held me so close\u003cbr\u003e I forgot I was a body. I became his body\u003cbr\u003e of work. Biology. Physiology. Anatomy. Master, doubting\u003cbr\u003e the Old Masters, believed doubt could draw a new map to the interior.\u003cbr\u003e In his classroom at the university, Master had me undressed and laid\u003cbr\u003e on a table for his pupils\u003cbr\u003e to see. He descended from his dais with the dynamism of a god walking among his disciples. Whatever he dictated they scribbled\u003cbr\u003e on their slates, lapping his theories and thoughts\u003cbr\u003e like dogs lapping piss from a chamber pot.\u003cbr\u003e Some want to be holy. Some want to be human. Some want to believe the nature of the human revealed reveals the nature of the holy.\u003cbr\u003e As Master opened me—groin hard\u003cbr\u003e against my hips, hands in my guts—I opened him. I gave him\u003cbr\u003e nerve. Tendon. Muscle. Ventricle. Mandible. Sternum. Tibia. Atria. Labia.\u003cbr\u003e Every aspect of myself\u003cbr\u003e I hadn’t resource or reason to fathom—heft of the mind, mechanics\u003cbr\u003e of the heart—he dissected. Documented. Paraded before his surgical circus. His spectators and skeptics\u003cbr\u003e oohing and aahing. Shuffling in their seats. Fanning back the heat.\u003cbr\u003e Their interest with what was found in me formed\u003cbr\u003e       from their interest with what could be in them . . .\u003cbr\u003e I wanted to tell them that\u003cbr\u003e they weren’t special. They had no soul\u003cbr\u003e beyond their investment in the function of the soul. Their gaze\u003cbr\u003e not absolute. Not pure. Not empirical. Only imperial. Impure. Approximate.\u003cbr\u003e I wanted to tell them that there was much they’d never know. They thought they knew\u003cbr\u003e what knowledge was. But knowledge\u003cbr\u003e was me: the edge of doubt and belief, of what persists Master after Master, reified and repudiated, preserved\u003cbr\u003e in a Providence library—air-conditioned, light-controlled—\u003cbr\u003e touched and retouched, awaiting a new Master to approach the edge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTHE NIGHTMARE\u003c\/i\u003e: OIL ON CANVAS: HENRY FUSELI: 1781\u003cbr\u003e Too hot to\u003cbr\u003e rest, I toss\u003cbr\u003e my arms off the bed. My night-\u003cbr\u003e gown wet with\u003cbr\u003e sweat. I feel you\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e —a sack of\u003cbr\u003e scavenged skulls\u003cbr\u003e on my chest\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e —sipping\u003cbr\u003e the salt from\u003cbr\u003e my breasts. Imp.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Incubus. Im-\u003cbr\u003e pulse. You and\u003cbr\u003e me like a mare\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e that must be\u003cbr\u003e broken in\u003cbr\u003e by breaking in-\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e to. Tamed is\u003cbr\u003e how fire is\u003cbr\u003e by giving itself something to destroy:\u003cbr\u003e it destroys it-\u003cbr\u003e self. Who\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e can deter-\u003cbr\u003e mine what’s inside\u003cbr\u003e another?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e What is risked\u003cbr\u003e when we enter?\u003cbr\u003e Caliper. Forceps.\u003cbr\u003e Scalpel. Oculus.\u003cbr\u003e Perhaps you’re\u003cbr\u003e the wilderness\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e that waits with-\u003cbr\u003e in me. Perhaps an-\u003cbr\u003e other mystery, I\u003cbr\u003e open beneath\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e you. Yoked. Harnessed.\u003cbr\u003e Paralyzed.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e At once a-\u003cbr\u003e wake and a-\u003cbr\u003e sleep. I nay.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I knock\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e over the kerosene\u003cbr\u003e lamp. Light of\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e the rational\u003cbr\u003e mind snuffed. Shadow\u003cbr\u003e of shadows.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Because I can’t\u003cbr\u003e see, I sense.\u003cbr\u003e Your thumb\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e thrumming\u003cbr\u003e my mouth. A\u003cbr\u003e command. Arch-\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e angel. Vision\u003cbr\u003e of invasion.\u003cbr\u003e Insemination.","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301190455525,"sku":"NP9780143136842","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780143136842.jpg?v=1767721300","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/all-the-flowers-kneeling-isbn-9780143136842","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}