after Shams Alkamil

time in hospitals is not linear.
the past and future lives of patients
                     dangle
by wires and rolling IV carts,
souls spread thin beneath bleached sheets.

thermostat is set to seventy-four perpetually
cold feet, always yearning for warmth, for
blankets. and day and night are snarled
serpents unable to be pulled apart.

here, there are no emerging stars or patches
of sighing skies. time in hospitals is not linear,
there is another version of you existing before
& after this sterile room, moments held
with an invisible web.

there is a version of you before motherhood where
you are a girl, your own mother scolding and pinching
a chunk of flesh near your waistline. in another you

are little sister, speed pedaling brother’s bike over
concrete rooftop, mouth opened, gulping gritty smog,
sweat, foot searching for breaks. in one corner you are

draped in a dupatta drumming a dhol, palms
slapping leather like lightning, laughing until
fingers swell and your ring becomes bent metal;

you are schoolgirl with slick, oiled braids
flicking ink from a fountain pen. navy pigment
hurled towards a group of mean girls. then you return

to be a mother again but for the first time.
then a second, and a third. it is the third
which nearly ends you. but it is not time–yet.

somewhere, you are a speck inside your grandmother,
a nestled egg inside the ovaries of the daughter she delivers.
she names her kingdom and you become her vast world.

in the final version you are thirty-three, kohl-eyed,
tipping a chalice of milk down your translucent throat,
wrists in dazzling gold, and you spill an infectious smile.

it so happens that in this version you are pale and moon-faced,
producing clicking breaths, and seemingly stuck.
and I love you in all timelines except this one– it strains to love.

so I imagine all other existing versions, and it coaxes
me to sleep a little faster, knowing time is not linear yet
you carry me in all curved spacetimes
even in ones I cannot fathom.

after Zaffar Kunial

that way, is the wild galloping of children,
the dried pods of an unknown tree
thudding to the ground,

their seeds shriveling,
blackening
below rotting food left for birds.

that way sweet smoke trails
                          everywhere,
sticking to clumps of hair and throats.

that way a lone blackberry bush at
the bottom of the hill absorbs
and chokes on all the lime
tennis balls, thrown by children
poking out like unpleasant
                       warts.

once, that way, while searching for a lost
soccer ball, a child moved stiff
branches to find a doll– bald and
torn. he ran away screeching.

this way a mango pit and bracelet
emerge from a sludgy pit of mud as
rain bubbles downward.

what else has this land swallowed
unwillingly? there,            lodged
between stone and layered
bedrock.

what have we cast aside
this way and that,
seemingly lost and forgotten?

nine months inside the womb

to truly build and house love

for what will arrive

                    after

is a throbbing passageway of a body

with fresh stitches and raw nerve endings.

                     there is wisdom

a mother will keep her child
swaddled and full

seconds after being sliced

and split wide

                    open

she knows the price of bearing and plucking fruit

and will pay with the marrow from her bones.

if God wanted to, He could’ve grown children hanging 

from the limbs of trees, instead of women, my aunt muses,

                   there is wisdom

in that children are not found
budding on orchard trees to later
tumble down like bruised fruit,
nor are they carried by a rippling
channel, soon spit out like
broken seashells across sandy shores,

instead children are cocooned between hips
of women who push past the crowning fire,
who then place their pink-fleshed babies
skin to skin
adoring this labor of love for a lifetime.

                     there is wisdom

God created mercy in one hundred parts
gifting one part for mother and child
keeping the remaining
ninety-nine for Himself, Al-Hakim.

                     there is wisdom

a woman is a chosen vessel.
who will bandage her?
nourish her with warm fennel tea and honey,

feed her powdered pistachios and almonds,

knead away knots, massage tired eyes,

cherish her through the clotted mess?

                      only the wise wonder—

if heaven lies beneath her feet,
then what of the space between her brows,
the crook of her elbows? the hollows of her
ribs? what ethereal light must radiate
inside her womb?