Gratitude for What we have become
After Sanam Sheriff
For time & space
whittled down to water
beneath our tender feet
shaped into a paddling
mechanism of movement
and our heartbeats throbbing
against the waters rippling us forward,
for age thickening our plumage, I am grateful
Brother, I opened my eyes to the
light of this world & found you beside me
and for this, too, I am grateful—
for our little lives reeling out of
mother’s womb as a song
in loops; you first, me tugging at your heels—
our cries marking distinct
notes in the gurgling music of time
For days spent beside each other,
our voices & arms, fishing lines reaching
into the depths of our souls to draw up
slimy wriggling trouts of joy.
For love looming beneath
the blanket as you tickled childhood malice
out of my skin, I am grateful
For desire bearing down on our crotches
and our hands, soft & tender instruments
of pleasure easing off the weight of lust,
for a moment. For the bathroom that kept
silent, absorbing our light moans in its porcelain
soundproof walls. For shower, generous sprinkle
of cold water against cane-marked skins, I am grateful
For the brutal fingers of years & fate
plucking us apart like guitar strings
from home, from the circular joy
of the sound hole out of which our
sweetest music was made,
For what we have become on
these dense waters of time— lone ducks opposite each other,
swimming towards a future either eyes can see
my mouth inflated by wonder, my stomach
brimming with testimonies, o let me spill—
Frail
And the day breezes through you
again, like a subtle mystery,
all your carefully stacked plans,
lifted in their listlessness,
origamis fluttering across your
eyes; you are fated to watch them
float away like the boy trailing
the tail of his sailing kite with his eyes
because your hands, you’ve learned,
are often not enough to hold them
in place; the universe, you felt, needs to
lend a hand; but the universe’s
hands are the wind & it took you
nights of freezing under the sheets,
wondering how much grace left you
when you touched yourself between
shame and sheer desire, it took
you so much sorrow to realize this
you’ve been told to pursue what’s
before you like the boy chasing his
kite with enough speed to catch up
with its pace but not enough to lift
him to reach it. You look to your left
a barrage of voices channelled
to your ears; to your right, your
deceased lover scrunching your
palm. No one is looking at your
legs: the silence swallowing them
like beachside sand; everyone is
urging you to look ahead, but what is
ahead, in your eyes, is fast ripping in the wind
you look around you, again,
loneliness, a calm breeze caressing
you in the softest places you know
Hunch
Today, everything I have lost
cramps behind me like a hunch
a presence that is not really
a presence, & I have walked on with
the weight of their screams
bearing down on me, o tired soul
is there any rest from all of this?
