Synecdoche

Maggie Greaves

When your government’s coup makes American news
I think of your word I liked at first, yakamoz:
the reflection of moonlight on seawater. Poetic,
until we drove out to a Mediterranean coast
past a dozen motels all calling themselves Yakamoz
in blue neon calligraphy. It was our first month in love.
You laughed when I said something arch and disposable:
that in America, one of those letters would have burned
itself out, or flickered.

Maggie Greaves is an assistant professor of English at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her poems have appeared in Connotation Press, Off the Coast, and Visions International, and her essays and reviews of poetry have appeared in places like the Journal of Modern Literature and Literary Matters. She is currently working on an academic monograph on contemporary poetry and astronomy.