Current
Issue
Fall 2026 / Volume 13.1
Ru Freeman
—
BOUNTY
She was
never the woman men thought her to be
so adored when free and loved by other men
who love freely as swollen rivers spill
over their sure banks and go mad
from a lack of imagination unable to pour
virility deeper into the soils in which they run
As if that route deserves less an abundance
Those men looked for her light glance
but only until she turned to one as gift with gift
rapt in adoration The fist-shaped muscle
beat / beat / beat only for him only him
though the others did not disappear
they lived as all men live on
Men expect singularity
as if the world empties stage left
as if her eyes require such emptiness
as if sight is diminished when full
as if / as if / as if she must live
alone with him or among them it is
a choice she can make & she does
It is said that the American eel
swims to the Sargossa sea turns
from male to female—
The pulse of larvae emerging confirms
a gift was exchanged & no accounting kept
YES BOY
Yes I am sneezing because Zyrtec™ is not allowed
anymore I am beyond the help of anti-
histamines or his kindness
Boy in Harvard sweats headed north
toward glory and equivocation
Yes no they will not permit anti-
genocide marches there or any mere crie
de coeur from any throat his alma mater
is out of reach I mean touch I mean sense
Boy sweet boy hooded in your corner
asleep through all this—
Landscape of devour and sloth
Smokestacks insisting on their carbon
footprints swills swamps
a swirl of sewage gurgling somewhere
beneath the Jersey marshes & yet
herons being herons two oaks limbered up
one against the other throwing shade
beside a surge of cars their glamorous glint
in sunlight Yes there’s sunshine today
boy with your swoosh footwear
your once small paws now fisted inside
your sweatshirt you are still sleeping
through this stupefying ugly beauty
Trailers and wee cabins by a sudden dearth
of water luminous in this first light
nothing but its own agita ruffling its mood
unseeing the frozen puddles on the land
their salt fried whites their grubby mirrors
failing to catch the sky Wake up boy!
your alabaster cities are gleaming with fresh blood
they are bathed in a wicked white not found
in the paint aisles of Home Depot™
& wheeled beasts are ironing the arched steel ribbons
that divide the divide Wake up boy look!
a caterpillar tractor is tripping on the banks
ramping up the bass in the quarries singing
progress here and murder for Rachel Corrie there
and for every home that held boys just like you
Yes boys like you who also startled awake
with the sound of a woman sneezing
a mother yelling perhaps saying
get up you lazy lazy scoundrel (beloved)
you bane (love) of my existence (my scant hours)
Be useful (alive) make children (carry us further)
Forget it O forget it lie there being useless
(O how sweet his face in sleep)
(O let him rest he’s just a child)
(Today there are no bombs)
Yes sleep on boy sleep through
your short journey you will get there
eyes half open restless to arrive
Any recent trauma to your eyes? she asked
None except what I see every day I replied
I’d rather see this than nothing at all
I rest therefore my eyes on thee
Boy asleep on the train and imagine an army
those boys back into my her their our life
Ru Freeman is a Sri Lankan and American writer, poet, and activist whose work appears internationally in English and in translation. She is the author of OPEN CARRY: POEMS (forthcoming, Trio Press), BON COURAGE: ESSAYS ON CITIZENSHIP, INHERITANCE, AND A CREATIVE LIFE (Etruscan), SLEEPING ALONE: STORIES (Graywolf), and the widely translated novels A DISOBEDIENT GIRL (Simon & Schuster) and ON SAL MAL LANE (Graywolf), a New York Times Editor's Choice Book. She is the editor of the 2015 anthology, EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION: (AMERICAN) WRITERS ON PALESTINE (O/R and Interlink) and INDIVISIBLE: GLOBAL LEADERS ON SHARED SECURITY (Interlink). She teaches creative writing in the US and abroad.
