Ghazal: This Winter – Michigan Quarterly Review
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Ghazal: This Winter

Above the gables and the lamps, a hunter’s moon this winter,
clear as a lightbulb or a polished spoon this winter.

Awake at five, awake at six, awake at seven,
the light is gone and not returning soon this winter.

Spit in a cup, hold out your arm for the needle,
blow out hard as you can into a balloon this winter.

“To write a sonnet is a fascist act—”
Suggest that to the next tyre-burning goon this winter!

The slave girl stole the king’s mare and rode away—
write her  أبيات, her canticle, her rune, this winter.

After you left, I didn’t know for the last time,
I listened to an exile play qanoun this winter.

Acedia, bronchitis, despair, nostalgia –
diseases to which I’m not immune this winter. 

Oh, weren’t we once gallant and outrageous ? 
Now we trade ailments on the phone, ya Mimijune, this winter. 

Let’s say that the beloved’s name is Shams
For it is Shams I am بدون. this winter. 

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