I sew my eyelids to see better.
A thrush chirps a prayer –
people mistake it for bombs exploding.

My mother clutches her tasbeeh,
each bead a memory strung on a wire of waiting.
I taste the wind – ashes, salt and metal.

Each day is a reminder of the second coming.
Women untie red threads from mazaars.
God is among us, perched on the thrush’s back.
He listens to prayers tumbling like coins in a beggar’s hands.
The streets echo with a child’s lament.
Somewhere an angel watches with unblinking eyes.
He inverts the kalma.

I sew my eyelids to see better.
This country has become alien to me
ever since you left.