when you are thrown from

the frying pan into the fire

there is a moment

where you are simply

in the air

I dreamt about you for the first time

last night

oh love

but you slipped away

when I woke up

won't you tell me what I dreamt?

oh love?

tell me - was it your eyes?

or your smile?

or some way you know

how to touch me

that I don't yet know?

oh love

I will let you slip away

every waking

if it means

I get to hear you

tell my dreams unto me

wide-eyed in morning light

I will believe every word

oh love

keeper

I keep a goldfish

and feed him memories

he swims in his bowl

vodka not water

and glows with life

when I tell his memories unto him

we are not so different 

those who keep my memories will keep me

when I am released

and swimming in the beyond

but unlike a bowl of vodka

there is no drowning in the beyond

and all bowls empty into the ocean

not the other way around

the one memory I cannot seem to keep

for my goldfish

no matter the feeding

no matter the telling

he can leave his bowl

any time

green abaya

I am wearing a green cotton abaya

and a yellow viscose hijab

my sunnah is sunflower today

I am eating bread

with cherry jam

the cherries are from our tree

but the jam is from my grandmother

I am listening to a thunderstorm

break a summer fever

which had gripped us all today

the rain splashes my knees

where I sit on the porch

but I do not care because

today I know God

perhaps I will eat a bowl of

watermelon next

Testimony

I am too much of a witness.

When the time comes they

will call me up and

ask what I have seen.

    "I did not only see with my

    eyes," I will confess.

    "But also with my hands and

    mouth, ears and hair, spine

    and gut, heart and hips.

    You must also ask the

    freckle on my skin the

    vein on my neck the

    swale of my belly the

    sweat on my palms."

They will ask the body what we saw.

    "We saw a man come together in

    the lions' den and 

    fall apart in

    the green pasture."

And who was the lions' den, o body?

    "It was a test from the enemy."

And who was the green pasture, o body?

    "It was us."

my father is rattled when the wind blows from the east

my father is rattled when the wind blows from the east

he is a dashed rock a greybeard

and he is a boy and bicycle

chasing storms he always knew

the air goes green

scabby knees hounding thunder

from the sky

a lifetime of windswept and seachange

attuned craggy mottled locked

in to every 

blister and cajole

what is it like to know the wind so old man

or is it you who are known to them

the mechanic

sometimes we come in limping

our bicycle built for two

having seen better days

somewhere along the way

spokes were bent

heart gears catching

desire a tire tread worn thin

and once brave hearts

balk at the thought of

riding such a rusted beast

for endless numbered days

but thankfully you are a mechanic

and in the corner of your shop

is a patient stool

and I have the rest of the afternoon

to wile away any window of mercy

to once again

put my faith

in your kind and sooted hands

The Condemned

there is a coca-cola machine

now 

in the old crumlin road jail

somewhere between

the flogging post

and the execution chamber.

I did not stop to check

if it was actually plugged in

or just a polite breed of furniture,  

an attempt to remind 

the nightmare is over.

or, which nightmare is over. 

The Hills Have Names

some hills are given names.

there is one called the hill of screaming 

because of a time 

some Presbyterians threw a bunch of Catholics

off a cliff. 

and just across the way

there is one called the hill of harmony

because of a time 

a bunch of Presbyterians and some Catholics bought an old ruined house 

together for £8,000

made their beds and slept in them

until the day they could wake up without war. 

I think this is what is meant by,

“Is this the hill you want to die on?”

penance

a man hurt me very badly once 

today his eyes are wide and still 

and his only wish

is to untangle the knots 

in my hair

one by one

with his fingers

it’s been seven years 

is that not the sentence jacob thought he toiled for rachel’s hand?

words become labored and

tied tight calloused

my brow is furrowed my hand is tucked

I let him touch my hair