Acupuncture, a Poem
/Among the personal objects inside a 2100-year-old Chinese tomb,
archaeologists found nine acupuncture needles,
four gold and five silver.
Long before knowing why,
ancient doctors knew that pain
must be fought with pain.
It’s quite simple: an array of needles pricking your arm
for a properly functioning heart and lungs.
Needles in the feet to ease insomnia and stress.
Needles between your eyes to fight infertility.
A little pain here,
and the effect is felt elsewhere
Once, a group of explorers set out to plant a flag on the South
Pole,
a needle at the heel of the globe, in the middle of nowhere.
But before the mission was completed
a new world war had begun.
The impact of the needle was felt in the world’s brain,
in the lobe responsible for short-term memory.
When Russia used ideology as acupuncture—a needle over the
Urals—
it impacted the pancreas and the control of blood sugar:
America paid tenfold for whiskey during Prohibition,
and at post offices, copies of Joyce’s
“immoral” Ulysses were stored for burning.
The universe functions as a single body. Stars form lines of
needles
carefully pinned to a broad hairy back.
Their impact is felt in the digestive tract, each day
a new beginning. How can you begin a new day
not having fully absorbed yesterday’s protein?
I was a child when my first teacher
mispronounced my last name twice. That pricked me
like a needle.
A small needle in the earlobe. And suddenly,
my vision cleared—
I saw poetry,
the perfect disguise.
"Acupuncture," by Luljeta Lleshanaku, translated by Ani Gjika, from NEGATIVE SPACE, copyright ©2012, 2015 by Luljeta Lleshanaku. Translation copyright © 2018 by Ana Gjika. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
