Modern Sudanese Poetry

my husband works his fingers

into the knot muscled against my spine     & my dead

stay dead           my hair a knotted cursive language

my ligature       my grief  barely literate      my amulets

knotted around my neck & wrists     my language

my language     cursive & silent         glottal & knotted

& scarring the cheeks of my dead      adorning the hair

of my dead       tallow in their braided hair

i read the books in translation     where is the poem

& circle every word i know               acacia     lupin

sandalwood & ash      they ululate       my dead

they squat like brides          over clay pots of smoke

a yolk suspended in each open eye          & some

in truth are not dead    my dead     & i am who

is lost        who is not counted among the living

the poem is not owed me       i was wed in all the colors

of my dead        the reddening     the borrowed gold

i wrote the poem in translation      i wrote the poem

in the loophole     i wrote the poem in cursive

i snarled it     i picked apart the threads & wove a shroud

i was wed in it     i unfastened      i broke my fast with apricots

furred like the ears of my dead      i looked laterally

for ancestors      i descended left & right     i read the book

in arabic      knew each letter & its sound     & did not

recognize the words for tallow     for ululate     my dead

my languages      my ligatures      smoke in my loosened hair