The Color of the Year Is Chartreuse Shame

Dystopian Sestina: 6 June 2049

I wake up green,
love that we can do that now, change colors,
red for grief, orange for shame,
new trends, new lies.
I ask mother how come purple rice
is now both a funeral and a birthday staple?
I wear my sun bubble, a staple
to greet the sun and still remain green
and inhale my birthdayfuneral purple rice.
Every day, everyone changes colors,
and the currency relies on lies,
but it’s not new that people forget shame.
Paintings have been replaced by rAIsin—a shame,
showing off fake art history knowledge is still a staple
and that’s one thing the algorithm can’t figure out: useful lies,
it doesn’t know of the slyness green,
it tries to replicate but can’t change colors
fast enough or enjoy birthdayfuneral rice.
The algorithm does help some to hoard rice
but that’s not new so there’s no need for shame.
And they’ve discovered many more colors
for skin inflicted by sun scorching—a natural staple
today, and more tomorrow, so more green tomorrow?
Yes, you’ll look great in more! A friend lies,
she says the best cash is earned from friendly lies,
and what’s better than that over birthdayfuneral rice?
Anyways, I put on more green,
a brand new wash of shame.
Shame has always been my household’s staple,
and my mother prefers the old colors over the new colors.
She has never understood the need people felt to change the colors,
Grandmother keeps whispering it’s to aid the history book lies,
the oppressor writes the history, it’s a staple, it’s a staple, it’s a staple
and she asks for plain rice.
She sleeps open-mouthed without shame.
The next day she wakes up green.
I change colors and turn my grief green,
and I sit at the corner of the room with lies and shame,
as the algorithm serves me the staple funeral rice.

Obit for Balochi, circa 1970

This poem is a funeral I’m not going to attend / There is a funeral in this poem I’m not going to attend / I’m not going to attend this funeral poem / a funeral is not a poem.
A new bride writes a funeral of her language:
Balochi, o rashk-e-qamar, you’re dying
on my tongue. A new language blossoms
now when I speak of the world, the dead
child, the murdered sister, the beloved’s
eyes. I keep trying to feed you
to my children but they spit you out
like a bitter gourd. Sweetest,
if I was allowed, I would put you
alongside the jaggery jars in the store.
But you don’t sell here. You have no capital.
So I’m forced to bury you beside my still-born.
Give him company. I promise when they unearth
the ground, I’ll lay claim to the both of you.
Yes, yes, I’m a coward:
I say the funeral prayer for something that isn’t dead.
I feel a rupture in the real when I speak
your words, a somber preoccupation with final things,
empty rinds. They keep asking me
to chew you back, remove your fibers from my teeth,
mark a final death date in my mouth.
In a dream you sleep in my lap,
and I sing you a lullaby my root,
my root, my root—