943: Ghazal
"Ghazal"
Dilruba Ahmed
It’s wine I need. Is it a sin to have another?
No harm in merlot, no harm in another.
In Ramadan, we’ll break our fast with dates and wine-
Must we pray in one room and dance in another?
Crushed blossoms at the end of the summer: teach me
how to coax nectar from the bloom of another.
Burned rice on the stove again: what’s to love
but my imperfections-you’ll forgive me another.
Butter by a kettle always melts, warns the proverb.
Heated, greased, we slip one into the other.
When, inexplicably, you enter my prayers,
I hear messages from one god or another.
Me encanta cantar, cuando estoy sola, en el carro.
My mother tongue dissolves. I speak in another.
Heart thief, enter the fields like a woman in love,
vase in one hand, shears in the other.
Dilruba Ahmed
It’s wine I need. Is it a sin to have another?
No harm in merlot, no harm in another.
In Ramadan, we’ll break our fast with dates and wine-
Must we pray in one room and dance in another?
Crushed blossoms at the end of the summer: teach me
how to coax nectar from the bloom of another.
Burned rice on the stove again: what’s to love
but my imperfections-you’ll forgive me another.
Butter by a kettle always melts, warns the proverb.
Heated, greased, we slip one into the other.
When, inexplicably, you enter my prayers,
I hear messages from one god or another.
Me encanta cantar, cuando estoy sola, en el carro.
My mother tongue dissolves. I speak in another.
Heart thief, enter the fields like a woman in love,
vase in one hand, shears in the other.