in parentheses

My name is Aydin Akgün. I am gay, Muslim novelist and poet. I was born and raised in Izmir, Turkey, moved to the United States in 1995. I received my B.A. in International Relations and French from the University of Nevada, Reno, and my M.A. in Creative Writing in poetry and fiction from Johns Hopkins University. I live and work in Washington D.C.

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Autumn Breakfast

The golden yoke
of trees have stained
the city streets,
and clouds of steam
percolate out
from grates and turn
a coffee-brown,
while bacon-thin
barren branches,
glisten against
the cloud-grey plate
of autumn’s sky.
It’s almost dawn,
you are asleep.
And I can’t wait
to share this feast.

Dandelion

Perhaps my Uncle Scott, who drank
himself to death, was drunk
again that sunny April day
at the family picnic when he shouted,
“Can you believe they call it a weed?”
proudly holding a single dandelion
between nicotine-stained fingers
for all to see, “Who are they
to say that? Don’t they know
you can make wine from its flowers?”

Perhaps he didn’t know how
to say that he could see the universe
in the millions of dandelions
blooming in the dark green fields
of spring and little suns
in the flaming yellow florets
that appear to burn so bright
and so quickly that in days
nothing is left but clocks of ash-
colored seeds that fade like spirits.

Or perhaps he understood,
better than any of us could,
why the ephemeral dandelion,
with its frail little stem,
never bows its head.

Who Will Remember the Sidewalks?

No one thinks to look
down at the grey world
beneath their feet
where the discarded
chewing gums cement
the angst-filled love stories
of the young girls
from St. Augustine,

and between the branch-
like cracks that never broke
my mother’s back,
the scattered cigarette butts,
moist and mushrooming,
tell the tale of Cherie,
who works till dawn
and calls men honey,

and under the corner
lamppost speckled with rust
the color of autumn leaves,
Charlie, the corgi, proudly
pours a trail of gold,
and barks to remind
his owner, the widow Donahue,
that she is not alone.

Perhaps, their blindness
is a blessing; for what
would they do if they were
like this poet who keeps on asking,
“when all is said and done,
who will remember the sidewalks
that they used to walk on?”

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