Poetry: Mud Want By Mari Pack

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.
​

          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. ​