Mud Want
By Mari Pack
Editors' Note: This poem appears in Mari Pack's new chapbook, The Description of a New World (Dancing Girl Press). It was also the subject of this poetry film we published last year.
The word gharam
in Arabic: a love that burrows, attaches,
dies inside. A love that can ruin,
will ruin.
I will tear this desire out by the root.
Caking mud on a face,
the mask of being honest. I’m finally
being honest.
It’s neti, neti
not you — but an echo. At least not yet.
in Arabic: a love that burrows, attaches,
dies inside. A love that can ruin,
will ruin.
I will tear this desire out by the root.
Caking mud on a face,
the mask of being honest. I’m finally
being honest.
It’s neti, neti
not you — but an echo. At least not yet.
Grasping wet weeds
out of a reflection
puddles of pigment, murky and precise
clearing like a curse-bed
and I’m not better than wanting myself back.
Meanwhile,
my father, a sage
blind man, third eye winding —
tells me, “be kinder to my daughter.
She’s nostalgic for Samsara.”
Intimacy
as an indictment. I can be crueler than this,
but if you stay long enough
I will open like a flower.
out of a reflection
puddles of pigment, murky and precise
clearing like a curse-bed
and I’m not better than wanting myself back.
Meanwhile,
my father, a sage
blind man, third eye winding —
tells me, “be kinder to my daughter.
She’s nostalgic for Samsara.”
Intimacy
as an indictment. I can be crueler than this,
but if you stay long enough
I will open like a flower.