Colocynthesis
by Wafaa Mustafa
for Handala in the past, present, & future perfect
وهل من الحنظل يمكن تقطير العسل؟
أحمد مطر --
O world unselved
in the aeolian drift
sniped into stasis
from the what-if of &
I wish to trade tomorrow for a better bird
to obviate the fog between a monologue
and the heft of a blue pause winged
in the spores of a vowel
however cumulant this naphthalene
between mirror ideated and marrow inert
the delta’s prolix palindromes the eye
where we sleep on a ragged quilt
tendrilly dreaming each frayed seam
with its faint breadth
the lalia of this and that
myth mosaiced from debris
the jugular imperative to rhizome
sentimentary from the urn of tiled seas
and crimson the folium like apples
with each of our many seeds