Sometimes I can't sleep. That's because of the bear under the bed.One night, the bear was breathing hard.When he breathed in, the bed lifted up off the floor.When he breathed out, the bed slammed back ... [+]
R. A. Allen's poem, "The Newcomer," was originally published in Short Edition’s September '19 Rendez-Vous. R. A.'s poetry has appeared in RHINO, The Penn Review, JAMA, Amuse-Bouche, Glassworks, and many others. He lives in Memphis, a city of light and sound. More at https://poets.nyq.org/poet/raallen
This dictionary defines "rooihout" as a South African tree on page 2624; "aasvogel," a vulture, is on page 2— catnip for armchair etymologists, crankbait for obsessive logophiles. But for sheer phonetics, a melodious contender from globalization's onslaught might be Russia's "novichok" (newcomer). What a ring it has, what a sound! It peacocks its "nova"-ness in its initial syllables, and then, like the triumphant dismount of a Soviet gymnast, there's the wallop of that "chok" at the end— a cellar door of a word if ever there was one. But it turns out that novichok is a nerve-agent WMD whos