We Are Saying Yes, But Who Are We to Say
That silence again
a wall
of feathers, and near
enough
to block the
circuit of our time—
Adobe wall,
roads of dust—
thirty two years
until the bones
discoursed—
That's how long
I've dug into
myself—
And the baby?
She is a promise—
ungraspable,
mist—
Fuss or no fuss,
yearn, yearn,
yearn. Heart
pounds, ears
throb—
Will it ask
the question
tattooed
on our skin?
Until dirt
fills
my grave, you say.
Call it wait
or rest—the stare,
the lunge back
into what we can’t
swim—
Another shore now—
how our arms flail
the joints’
acidic burn—
A hunger
unbeknownst
to us, a flame cupped
in skin—earth
turning us
toward a thin stream
of self—Oh anticipant,
Oh dear
loving Lord—to hold
a burden like a need
and let
a new life begin.
Copyright Credit: Khaled Mattawa, "We Are Saying Yes, But Who Are We to Say." Copyright © 2019 by Khaled Mattawa. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow.
Source: PoetryNow (2019)