I WANT SKY

In the hiding

hour of autophagy

ghosts hang out all day and talk to us.

An archival haunting demanding tribute:

     half a lime for breakfast every day.

بشرٌ يئنّونَ من الألمِ

human voices keening in pain

تُشعلُ أجسادَهُمَ النارُ

their bodies, consumed by fire

light up the dark

.فيضيئوا العتمةَ

They will blame the early morning hours

في طَيّ الكُتْمانِ: under the seal of secrecy

where there was no sunrise

     though

moon tells me god is love unconditional. I

ten thousand years old and no wind

milk souring on my tongue

whisper until we sleep:

     Do you see the map home?

This world will have you running to stone for embrace—

والحجرُ أحَنُّ من البشر

gravestone gentler than human.

The wretched left a monument of comments that day

في مجرى الجُلجُلة

in the place of thunder,

I have faith in a world of signs and wonder.

This time it will be different

Arab spring forcing its way

old life re-members

Lightening would manifest from the stale air.

You are prepared for all of it:

paraded processions wedding ecstatic 

when the fists rush towards your gut

they will find instead smoke.

Our desire up to our throats,

increased blood flow ripping heart open from within

dead now after decimating perfectly healthy skin

we will become history contested.

A light in the earth of her                                                             chest.

Grief is a country without borders

eulogy to be read from right to left

—baba’s tongue buried in sand—

I dream in Arabic of salt drink gallons

but the ocean stays the ocean and once again I wake

/ am a wake in English.

I’m thirsty is what’s killing me most.

Don’t die this way.

Wake up drink water one foot and then the next walk meet the sun

A face that is so itself

to look upon it on that summer day was like drinking

prism refracting rainbow

rupture rapture

who washed her, who folded her into eternity, who—

This is the only river I want to write about.

I am the entire galaxy in a drop.

Don’t you know I am everything?

          An absconded city of bees.

          A novel adjective.

          Each moment I invoke the music of my people

          who danced

​​​​​​​          in a room so small our knees kissed

​​​​​​​          half laughing

​​​​​​​          half expurgation

​​​​​​​          mirror tilted towards the sun.

I dance a century after her song.

​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​I am a sapling old enough to cast a shadow—

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​I am the tree pulling sap up my body to nourish sprouting leaves for spring—

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     I am flowing water—

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     I am a community garden overrun by aphids in bloom—

​​​​​​​    ​​​​​​​​​​​one day I decay and the next I am the moon

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     I am mountain my tears flow from bare stone—

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​My body is rock and dust—

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     I am ascendant—

​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​     The sky I want is blue.

​​​​​​​A Note:

This cento features at least one line from every writer whose work appears in I Want Sky, a journal the author edited celebrating Sarah Hegazy and queer SWANA life, edited by Bazeed and co-published in 2021 by the Asian American Writers Workshop and Mizna. To name and thank them for words ripe for stealing: ’mad, AMA, Amir Ferdjani, Banah el Ghadbanah, donia salem harhoor, Eman Desouky, Gamal ElSawah, Ghinwa Jawhari, Janine Mogannam, Kamelya Omayma Youssef, Layla Zbinden, Mejdulene B. Shomali, Mish Ismy, Nada Almosa, Niki Afsar, Nour Kamel, Nusaiba Imady, Qais Kamran, Shiyam Galyon, and Walid Daou. 

The lines of Arabic that appear in the cento are either immediately preceded or followed by Bazeed’s translation into English.

The title of the poem, and the eponymous journal from which its lines are sourced, is borrowed from the last sentence in Sarah’s suicide note, translated from the Arabic: