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With will and salt water,

washing brown sweat from his crown

after kissing the ground: an ancient sailor,

saintly siren saying no to senseless warlords

and selfish entitlement,

first night rights and baptismal desert wash,

holy mirage of sustenance,

sun blistering fingers, numb brutality spanning centuries of reality

as if it were all a drop fallen plum cheek,

humming recklessly, wheat-flour and water for dough,

the window cracked warily, burlap curtain breathing lazily,

pulling air from the dim one-room floor and five children.

She keeps nustling egg shells and rebel contraband under her sheets,

watching all night, sitting back upright to the wall and facing the door

waiting for men to pour in like the rainy season

knocking her jaw off, sawing the locks off the door

falls to the dirt floor in a rusty cloud,

mocks resounding prayer calls broadcast from pirouetting minarets,

centrifugal tapestry of gold filigree landed about her waist,

facing up to the Heavens, heart and arms open

her hands are tree limbs that change species:

today she is a brushfire,

a metal adjunct of dispensation quarterly,

half-life mitochondria are the building blocks around her city,

her sacrifice hidden hair houses tim.e 

Falling plaster crusades in sandstorm fury,

blast wall graffiti victory over the faces of empty bookcases of once-before-men,

and then the sky opened up and God said, good luck,

carry this with you as a token of Love,

your generosity is in the hands of forget-me-nots and towering rifles,

rippling ozone visions of ziggurat,

one camel shot, it’s head turned inside out

so with two youngest perched on single hump,

three walking beside her,

the dry heave of migration and hundreds of them when we zoom out,

the nondescript weaving and circular patterns in which the birds fly.

It takes a long time for geese to make the vee,

they stumble unsure, circling the same map twice more

before taking off again and out of eye socket,

trembling locket clenched tightly in her breast pocket,

day blue chadri pleated neatly—

the last ironing takes it to the wind,

the mindless rapport of bullet and man,

woman travels tirelessly to live on for children,

pregnant Earth held up by her own two legs,

wood mixing bowls of raisins and doday

to pass around the nighttime makeshift encampment,

settling down inside one round tent together

each mother cries a part of its burden

but rests better with the knowledge of comfort in her sisters.

Shortwave radio transmits illegal song,

joyous ouds and throaty chorus of live opus,

natural ovation of bug-clickers,

midnight inside safety and sorrow,

forgotten wings spread sodden morning glow

across the sable faces, babies heart re-growing,

nature’s scent unfurling medicinal mother’s blood and sage,

wisdom of age seeks valley and progenitor,

change and sigh—preventing war from happening to us again,

when men cease lying and speak to one another,

borrow his neighbor’s shoes

and return them clean of crusted mud

spent the afternoon wading through muck puddles

too embarrassed to call for help

waited for fabled fisherman on punt,

angling waver in the distance, pole pivoting the flat-bottom craft in the sun.