my people are lovers of the sher, qasida, ghazal.
my people memorize the Qur’an and recite the ghazal.
my god elicits trust through aqsam, oath after oath.
my people sing don’t insist on leaving tonight, Farida’s ghazal.
my people must include my father, his voice lilting from baritone to bellow.
did my god not make his mouth, sonic imprint of every remembered ghazal?
my people say I am a morsel of their great, green liver. my people love first
like vultures, then martyrs. death the sprawling shadow behind every sunlit ghazal.
my people are bordered. my people are borderless. my god swears
by the fig, by the olive, by the brightest star, by the prophet who penned no ghazal.
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