Feature image by Rebecca Farr. Light,Dark Savage,Saved 4, 2014. Mixed media on wood panel, 24 x 18 in.

Listen:

A mandrake quickens
into greed-grab, tears a page
from Genesis. Clods

of earth are clods of god.
Clods of earth are clods
of dendrites with dirt

skirting the roots.
Let there be light

skins and dark skins. One
to rule the other. Manifest,

destinations of night’s pitch
plague the heart’s
thirst for extinction.

Memory of the untouched
is the more beautiful object.

From the streets
a humpback’s gashed fin laments
this justice, its skin scarred

with extinction’s dark
body owned by light.

I strike a candle
against tribal ruin, against
the separation of day

and night.

Rajiv Mohabir
Winner of the 2014 Intro Prize in Poetry by Four Way Books for his first full-length collection The Taxidermist’s Cut (Spring, 2016), Rajiv Mohabir received fellowships from Voices of Our Nation’s Artist foundation, Kundiman, and the American Institute of Indian Studies language program. His poetry appears or is forthcoming from journals and anthologies such as Best American Poetry 2015, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, Drunken Boat, Anti-, Great River Review, and PANK. He received his MFA in poetry and translation from Queens College, CUNY and is currently pursuing a PhD in English from the University of Hawaii.