Friday, December 16
SELF PORTRAIT AS MOUTHPIECE OF GOD
in most versions I am
impossible,
flesh immolated by the hot voice
of a calling angel:
not sybil, never a throat for any wise
man or lord’s speech,
though I too was once congealed
blood, a mere clot,
and I too became a clump
of sinew, then grew a body of man
though I am
no man nor prophet,
not an oracle nor beautiful
enough to tongue a slip of revelation.
my hair is palmed and pulled,
my form lithe, obedient and so kept
vacant. I heed all commands.
I bear the brunt, someday
even a child, and once a mother
paradise will beckon
from beneath my ordinary feet.
no, not mouthpiece, but gaping
cervix, marrow blown from the hollow
neck of a bone, though still
a message worth hearing. (Sarah Ghazal Ali)