Barzakh
We used to swim in it. We swam only once.
*
Your window overlooked the sea. Whenever we prayed
to anchovies and sardines, your grandmother cooked.
*
Great joys exhaust me, small ones bring me to tears.
A thief, I am not
guilty, I mugged
some of your beautiful years.
*
We used to swim in it.
Our bodies are not what they were to ourselves or to the other.
We built a temple over why we had built it.
*
Each morning I clasp
your bracelet, your necklace.
58
Your earlobes, two buoys on the tip of my tongue.
*
Generously you dance
so that love is fair.
Alone you sing
as though no one listening would dare.
*
The sea
we swam in
and the sea we’re yet to transfigure.
Copyright © 2024 by Fady Joudah. From [...] (Milkweed Editions, 2024). Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Milkweed Editions, Ltd.