THE SECRET OF NERVAL

The painter took me onward,
to a place where the streets became narrower
and more gloomy.
We came upon a house,
at the end of a series of houses,
and in that house a room
near the end of a hallway.
Past genocides and heroin deals
that fill the whole horizon,
past wainscoting and holy basil,
past scanty clumps of date palms.
Past madness and rivers and rotten teeth
and catacombs and white cubes and
and marionettes. Past redemption.
In this delightful place, whose
exquisitely carved windows
look out over the caliche,
I lost my European hair.

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Originally published in the Cleveland Review of Books

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Terrence Arjoon is the author of The Disinherited (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025) and Acid Splash, or Into Blue Caves (1080PRESS, 2023). He is a poet, editor, and critic whose work can be found in Annulet, Tagvverk, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and Smooth Friend, among other publications. He is an editor at 1080PRESS and manages 192 Books.