Is that which turns thrones to ash.
Seven years of bellies full,
since Euphrates lifted up her skirt
to let us gaze at the throbbing heaps of gold
we could not touch
(how we wished to with our sweaty palms!)
Ten years ago, the starving devoured with their eyes
tables of plenty, reaching all the way to Baghdad,
all the pledges of Jerusalem, covered with a long black veil.
My children, crying, burned windows in the sand,
for voices had been raised in the temples, altars smashed
With leaden hymnals, sepulchers dulled by ire
from their father’s throats. Shall we make
the deserts green? My hips told me to obey,
as did the goat and the bear who I saw
lusting after women drawing water from my well, naked
through their rags. Is this the hour
of throwing prayers high to the stars
dancing through the dawn,
beating your hides with ox tails,
conspiring with you, faith
whose name is woman?
That which breaks to pieces
hangs above us now,
a spider dancing on the blade of a night,
spinning webs below,
tempting us to reach for them.
