Thursday, December 23, 2021

GHAZAL LOOKING EAST, THEN WEST

I come from a language that has no future tense,
where love itself is measured simply by standing still.
My mother's ancestors brought bad habits but good songs,
their hungry ghosts lingering around the whiskey still.
You told me once that loyalty was a defect of character.
My heart is a three-legged dog following you still.
Perhaps it's not love if something doesn't get broken.
When everything shatters, even the world becomes still.
My daughter spied a dolphin in the Mississippi last week.
A child's eye can do that, can hold a great river still.
We listen closely to the arguments of winter crows,
the air between each shriek all the more still.
My thoughts weren't all that interesting, so I let them go.
They wore themselves out, pretending to be still.

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