The Lost Arabs

A body comes

A body goes

A religion comes

A religion goes

It would not be faith

Were it constant.

It is human

So human

To leave.

Yaani, to create a garden is to make a border. Even beauty is walled.

My eyes are burning

again I watch them fuck into astral glory     again

I watch them remake my world     again I weep

as I never have for death.

God, do not let me anywhere

near memory, I beg of you

None of them knew how to touch without

wounding and all of them touched

instinctively

I know a flower is not a weapon but the possibility

for harm remains

restless midnight river /

heavy and swollen

I keep doing that. Bleeding

belief, spilling it onto mats and garden beds.

Making love to whatever I consider holy

& there is no significant body of water in the suburbs, nothing to drown in yet we drown anyway

Award. Omar has performed his work nationally and internationally. He lives in Sydney.