Julia Bethan
American Sonnet with a Line by Van Gogh
Jasmine Khaliq
Indebted to Wanda Coleman and Terrance Hayes
four years I went to school across from fields of grain—
the street named “American Avenue,”
the school likewise “Heritage High”—on the nose,
I agree. spring wheat to the waist, easy
place to pour brown unbelonging. my real body
in wheat, I wrote, after leaving. that poem titled “portrait.”
last night, attending “an Immersive Van Gogh Experience,”
I stood within a room of wheat projected:
all walls floor ceiling ears sheaves faces bodies
my real body wheat breathing crow underfoot
and overhead brush me and bring me
into being—if one hasn’t a horse
one is one own’s horse, he wrote—all my work
to set my horses loose, and they refuse to leave
the street named “American Avenue,”
the school likewise “Heritage High”—on the nose,
I agree. spring wheat to the waist, easy
place to pour brown unbelonging. my real body
in wheat, I wrote, after leaving. that poem titled “portrait.”
last night, attending “an Immersive Van Gogh Experience,”
I stood within a room of wheat projected:
all walls floor ceiling ears sheaves faces bodies
my real body wheat breathing crow underfoot
and overhead brush me and bring me
into being—if one hasn’t a horse
one is one own’s horse, he wrote—all my work
to set my horses loose, and they refuse to leave
Jasmine Khaliq is a Pakistani Mexican poet from Northern California. She holds an MFA from University of Washington, Seattle. A finalist for Diagram’s 2021 Chapbook Contest as well as both Tupelo Press’ 2021 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize and Snowbound Chapbook Award, she currently is a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, serves as Assistant Editor of Quarterly West, and reads for Split Lip Magazine. Her poetry is found or forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Black Warrior Review, The Pinch, Seneca Review, Poet Lore, The Boiler, and elsewhere.