three girls ago
bloodroot: it was Eid
Al-Adha: a man
I loved shoved
my face into
German reeds
I can still feel his sweat
when I unsleep: the cleave
of his breath-lice
warming chains
of my necklace
I was without people
oh so summerful
I invented my girlhood
I languaged myself
a knife-body
yet all uncles said
I’m badly woven: bad
muslin: say forgiveness
comes easy say freckledirt
buried the faces
of my sisters: lakewarm
& plentiful—
we kiss we touch
we Magdalene each
other it’s true
during the adhan I pulled
down my tights
nylon black like the chador
of my mother
I licked from my yesterlove
the salt licked
real good—to pluck it again
I must whorl ad nauseam
for the addendum
of flesh the soft
sumac, cottonwood hard
as the nipples
he circled
we are singing
it’s spring and God to my song
is unlistening, unlistening
o Maryam o Miriam
o Mary we are undying
we are not gone
are not slayed we are
unslaying—our hand
wields this life
and I ply myself
out come here
between my legs
come in all are welcome who believe
Copyright © 2019 by Aria Aber. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 9, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.