By Jess Rizkallah

the past is a jinn / sitting on your chest
dreams aren’t warnings they are forecasts

the weather will always get inside your body
where the convergence of meaning strikes

so learn to swim / the other woman is you
with different teeth / always a rose on the table

for blessings / and two for love / which is a container
for a shared vocabulary of symbols

stand in front of your mirror / what tarot card
are you today / consider your posture / are you held up

by a stem / a wick / a sword in stone waiting
for the hand of god / ya god / ya allah / god

and allah are the same articulations of wind
realized at different registers / you don’t have to

be praying all the time / often, you are heard
the first time / a gift to be read / you were always

a watcher but its never too late to be a doer
to plunge a trowel into dirt and tuck a seed

behind the unknown’s ear / the sun is a sound
the heart is a radio / when you dream of your love singing

and a thermometer when you begin
to forget the shape of their ears

an owl is just the sky whistling
thru its nose while sleeping

when the color blue rests its eyes
and it’s just night / not sadness

there’s a million reasons a horse loses
none of them have to do with crystals

and moonbeams but partly to do with blood
the tools are important but ultimately do you know

how to be your own light
dappled through milkweed

butterflies and moths are two sides
of the same shaft of light / their shadows

on the wall a projection
two sides of the same hope

you are protected

can anybody see the future? what’s over there
why is there always a president

why is everyone a cop
or a test

if you drop a question mark
you’re supposed to flip it

heads up for the next person
the bulb from which a penny grows

dead ends are doors with no handles
even in hell you keep digging

fate is just pheromones
that’s a cool sentence, but do I believe it

that’s a nice question
but can it carry my weight

when a sickness doesn’t kill you but still takes pounds of flesh
there is a separate heaven for your melted parts

in the clouds spread above us
our bodies are part of the water cycle

water has memory
our bodies repeat like calendars

the clouds are archives
fact-check me, baby / then strike the record

the world’s a needle / like my finger
when i traced the lines in his palm / and then

a blackbird flew out of his mouth / in the dead
of night, a song / graceful, mine. that’s just one example

i don’t have another