Variation on a Regicide
Enter SILVIO, wearing bloodstained crown, clutching dagger SILVIO: Well, it’s done, and my heart is sicker for it. The head that wears the crown rests uneasy, Or so said the king. He was wrong: mine rests not at all. If you can bear it, bear me to the stage, Where players dance and [
For The Record
you have grown too big. too full of images like water in fist, like sand between fingers, unreliable as ink on page. for the record, there will only ever again be vague flashes, just the cucumber slipping out the end of your sandwich pieces of gravel in your knees trampoline-burn the s
Daffodils
My mother chose clothes toned in pastel and soft wool sheared of pink and brown. Something wrong with her shalwar kameez- she could tell her identity wasn’t for the 9-5, so she hid it in a button-down. Professional, kempt, clean. Adapting to an alien rhythm- monotony isn’t so hard.
The Amman I know
the Amman I know, wakes up early in the summer stretching out her feet as the adhan sounds. streets remain silent bas the scraping of sweepers and the corner bakery rolling up its shutters. slowly, the city awakens with the honks of taxis and squeaky carts of ka’ak bread, she stirs as the national
As you lay dying, in a language I barely knew
As you lay dying, you coughed up worm-strings of words in a language I barely knew. Smooth platefuls of sound, slipping like the silver-butter of moonlight on a pond. Ephemeral. If I cannot conjugate (I cannot) – I die, you die, she would die, too, – how can I feel the rough edges of [&he
Weaverbirds
We used to climb the thorn trees when we were boys And annoy the weavers building their summer nests. I always kept my shoes on. You were older, Your footholds surer, scrambling up on palms and soles Dusted gold with pollen. You found where the birds Were at work. They were spinning dry grass into [
embroidery
sitting cross-legged on the veranda couch, I try to mirror the patience of your voice when threading the needle for the fifth time, wanting to sew your speech into linen and have it rest in my dress pocket. naively, I swaddle myself in the temporary, slipped like a bookmark betwee