Ode to Dalya’s Bald Spot

my sister wraps the throw

around herself on the small

cream loveseat & i know

for sure that she is not

a speck of dirt on a pill.

she coughs & sniffs up all

the lucky air in the room

into her excellent nostrils,

which are endless

holy wells replenishing

the soft architecture of her guts.

not even the lupus can interrupt

this ritual of beholding.

you ever look at a thing

you ain’t make, but become

a mother in the looking?

our blood is a thread tied

around my finger, tied

around her finger, that helps

me love. when her knees

swell, when her joints rust,

when her hair thins & flees

making a small continent

of skin on the side of her head,

i am witnessing her in whatever

state her body will allow.

Bismillah to the brain that

put my name next to her name

and said look at this girl your

of peace. littlest bald spot, that no one

expected or knew how to love

you remind me of us.

i know Dalya’s thinking, how ugly

what a shame, but i wanna

build a mosque right then

& there. make an annual

hajj to that brown meadow.

slick as a coin. little planet

uncolonized. flagless.

her awful, but her own.