for Agha Shahid Ali

I would have gone to such great lengths, had you not died, oh Shahid,
To reach across a table, touch your shadow, had you not died, oh Shahid.

I taste such salt in the depths of my mouth that I might someday become
An ocean so none would dare to navigate the ink of my eye, oh Shahid.

My daughter’s nightlights through the doorway ache — she is
Awake a palavering wind, asleep a lucent magpie, oh Shahid.

I beg — and call it prayer — for the Muslims’ eternal sleep to pass,
But winter is never swift, though the believer’s cradle burns by and by, oh Shahid.

When I recite revelation, I hold a blood orange sun between
myself and the foreign language of the sky, oh Shahid.

A penciled note above your poem “Crucifixion” S. read this
Becomes the sacrificial king descending hills beside you, Shahid.

Could anyone be unfaithful beneath your imagined Sonoran monsoons,
Your handbell conjured rain, your waterborne solitude? Not I, oh Shahid!

From memory you recite “The Dacca Gauzes.” Weavers’ amputated hands
Pull you into pathless outskirts. Words alone can guide you, Shahid!

Your body washed and scented with lotus and camphor oil,
the letters doused by ceremony. We bid you adieu, Shahid.

With saffron rubies down the slope of your nose, you allowed Oliver
To write and breathe a refrain left when you died unrhymed, oh Shahid.