At love, i am mad—

it is afternoon and i am compliant.
i have teared up over nothing again. it is the nothing that keeps me.

in syntax, there are mistakes.        i have left the window open.
crows everywhere.         can't they be tender?

like a mother  
in my small world

i stammered into birth 
body bones oblique 

bleak January morning 
a raven carves my arms for dinner.

outside, people
orbiting a scaffold 

speak in verse. my love      verbose.  
there are languages only he knows.

shame in wanting
eversion 

i have found ways 
to keep away— 

there is so little to fight for.

grey mittens   
in both his palms 

placed against my open wound—
Rahman everywhere 

is in the birds
migrating this spring 

floating in a fishbowl— 
light slitting us   open

unforgiving. 

white dust rising 
mid-winter afternoon 

my hands still
my hands, 

eyes still
a lamp. 

i have attuned to the living 
darkness this world demands 

my absence.
i, a namesake—

Ayesha like my mother 
Aisha   like

wife of the holy prophet,                                                       
his most beloved,

in whose lap 
he took the last 

of breaths.                                 
the language of love is sweet 

good lord, 

softness i must not seek
swallows me.