to dhikr, I by Scherezade Siobhan

from “to dhikr, i”

passportation –

a person as paper
as rite as rudiment

a language, a lament
limp as a loose tooth

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reveal to me the vers libre of your body
the beloved qasida penned in paisleys of kohl

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I always wake up to find an absence
as deathless as a desert

Your satyr-limbed ascensions when
you claw the marble floor of a bombed
mosque. This memory murmurs through

footsteps of hamzah. Arms spread
out in a schizophrenic incantation

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percussion is a form of beating. i emerge from music – crushed & redrawn. breath molten. breath beaten out of me when you come to pray in the ivy-and-insect shrine that broods against my breastbone. breath, softheaded nestling. breath clapping its wings against a columbary. breath is the way of ruhaniyyat. in a bed of white noise, what is music, what is mourning – what is this pariah of longing. the verboten anthem; a dumb instrument translating all that cannot be said, only suffered, then sung.

About the Author

Scherezade Siobhan is an award-winning psychologist, mental health advocate, community catalyst, and a writer. Her work has appeared in journals, anthologies, art exhibits, theater performances and bios of okcupid users. She is the author of a chapbook, ‘Bone Tongue’ (Thought Catalog Books, 2015) , a full-length poetry collection, ‘Father, Husband’, (Salopress UK), poetry pamphlet, ‘to dhikr, I’ (Pyramid Editions, forthcoming) & her next second full length collection ‘The Bluest Kali’ is scheduled for release in 2018 (Lithic Press, USA). She is the creator and curator of The Mira Project, a global digital storytelling project on women’s mental health, gendered violence, and street harassment and also runs Bruja Roja – a literary space dedicated to publishing arrangements of language, art and journalism by women, non binary, trans, queer & neurodiverse people. She can be found squeeing about militant bunnies at @zaharaesque on twitter/fb/IG.