Ghazal

Newly happy in my body, blind to the lie at the core,
I toy with forbidden self, tantalized to the core.

She leaves behind black tights & "creative movement"
for pink and a bun: how will she find her "I" in the corps?

Kelly blades growing from cinders: some call dubious
proof there's new life in what dies at the core.

Are waves deaf? asks Michaux. Sometimes it's
other's music we covet--to get a rise at the core.

Teen-angry, innocent of what "it" was, I yelled Eat it raw!
Among the underpants they found a good-sized apple core.

For days she's acted years older; when she starts sobbing
I'm lost to my effort not to capsize at the core.

Songs we mumble, melodies we hum, dreams burrowing
upwards--hints for who listens: noise from the core.

I bloom to the click & thrill of a stranger, then flood
with blueish relief: he's not my size at the core.

Gutter is a word hurled: who lives there is tattered.
But aren't we owners uncivilized at the core?

Fire doesn't know how to be small for five minutes. No
apology blooms from his mouth, I ignite at the core.

In search of seals, beach glass, shooting stars, we go
from zoom-mode to wide-angle: we have eyes at the core.

In the wake of your leaving, no sleep -- but at dawn
I find I still smell of last night at the core.

Dream: I eat the shelled egg a white hen offers held
in her claw-foot. We are all disguised to the core.


From RAVISHING DIS-UNITIES: Real Ghazals in English, edited by Agha Shahid Ali (Wesleyan University Press, 2000).