For Misk Mohammed Khalil Gouda, Age 0

 


The rain delicate over the eaves,

On broad leaves of fireweed

& nettle. Like a child

Tiptoeing the dawn hallway,

Columnar light balustrading

Floorboards. Clouds build up

Come late afternoon, roiling bulbous

Blooms balanced along the ridge. 

The glacier melts, river rises,

Footprints & shabby, hurried tipis

Of driftwood borne along. They

Are our dailiness– the things we cannot change,

Misk. We are embedded in them,

Of them, grasping past to feign

An agency we cannot possess. Our

Eurydice worlds. We march meanwhile

To songs we’ve tooled into allegiances.

Looking back, the worlds slip from us

& into the light we spill, all battlefield & 

Barbarism. All life is forfeit. I

Am ashamed, Misk. I sing your name 

Into the maw of brutalities

& let its tender syllable resound.


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