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.