Albert Kapikian: The Hunt

They sold the youngest and most 

handsome of every village where they 

passed the night,  and these girls have 

been trafficked in hundreds throughout 

the brothels of the Ottoman Empire.

Arnold Toynbee

Armenian Atrocities

i am haunted in my hunting

for you dear god hear

me

the leaves are already hurling through the 

wind

the trees are off

it's quarter to twelve and i thought you'd be

here by now

your slippers are

waiting

This poem has appeared in the Washington Review's December 1986-January 1987 issue.