We Are Saying Yes, But Who Are We to Say

That silence again
a wall
of feathers, and near

enough
to block the
circuit of our time—

Adobe wall,
roads of dust—
thirty two years

until the bones
discoursed—
That’s how long

I’ve dug into
myself—
And the baby?

She is a promise—
ungraspable,
mist—

Fuss or no fuss,
yearn, yearn,
yearn. Heart

pounds, ears
throb—
Will it ask

the question
tattooed
on our skin?

Until dirt
fills
my grave, you say.

Call it wait
or rest—the stare,
the lunge back

into what we can’t
swim—
Another shore now—

how our arms flail
the joints’
acidic burn—

A hunger
unbeknownst
to us, a flame cupped

in skin—earth
turning us
toward a thin stream

of self—Oh anticipant,
Oh dear
loving Lord—to hold

a burden like a need
and let
a new life begin.

Khaled Mattawa, “We Are Saying Yes, But Who Are We to Say.” Copyright © 2019 by Khaled Mattawa. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow.

Source: PoetryNow (2019)