i claim to write no ghazals (i am not you) because my language, once removed, is stilted (i am told), a
confluence of consonants at the ends of my teeth (though i speak this fiction often), and because the
rules (those puritanical edicts) have limited my refrain-oh love, oh country, oh my people, oh
longing—but sometimes in my limbs i feel this shape wanting expression filling my tongue with
restlessness, my body with praise, my mouth with devotion and then i sway, against the staccato
grain of rhyme, against translation of intent, against couplet and rhyme and meter, against your
measurement of my suitability, and my words are a song (translated to rhythms that are far too
foreign, i know), to be heard by ears that are used to listening for the whistle of your bombs, for
bodies that recognize, even as they run, a heart that can take over beating when theirs no longer can.