DEEMA SHEHABI

Flight Over Water

(for Hashem)

NIGHT:

The Syrian beach town
hunches over a gauzy moon
                       
            and curves against the sky

A blanket of cave walls
opens over our bodies

Water in the blood
           then waves---

DEEP NIGHT:

Mosquitoes on catamarans
colonize our arms

           Wetness procrastinates
our stifling at death

IMPERMANENCE:

Someone’s boat condenses
           our breath

            in the basalt shells

We blunt our eyes out with sand
           and block out deep ponds
of stillness

MORNING’S DESIRE:

A cold, pillared corpse kiss

           I’m still a vagrant in your arms,
says the wave

           Shore’s freeze
in the back of your mouth

PROPHESY:

I  can’t                         (ebb)

hide  

my  disgust                  (flow)

at  death                        

 even  for                     (ebb)

a  day                                   
                                    (flow)

NOON:

A verse throws anchor into our tongues:

O God, most compassionate, most…

LATE AFTERNOON:

The sunless artillery
of your voice:

no more,
here, with you.

SUNSET:

Long ago, in Ra’as Al-Baseet

two children entered the sea,

their cheeks were buoyant apples

their lips bowed down
           to the dusky water

IMPULSE:

Look: there’s amber

through the trees

TWILIGHT:

Your eyes petition a gnarl
in the star:
           
Wait forty days, oh wobbly grief…