Poetry

From Issue I (2016)

Ghazal: Quilt

by FARZANA MARIE

Here hangs the horizon-long line with which you tied the first song
to a tree like a tire swing for me to find and fly on—

There beyond the busy bank where we dip a bowl of grapes into the cold
runs the current-slap like satin slippers we can try on—

Here among eight hollows holding prayer-hewn history close
a hallowed cave holds out a boulder built to cry on—

There between potato-fields greening summer your laugh and my tipped pen
sip the sun-spelled libations they’ve been high on—

Here Picture Rocks bottle unfiltered paints, shake, uncork, and spread
ecstatic bed of sky fit for a poem to fall and die on—

There your voice and my disordered lines dive into pool of saffron tea,
deep in search of rare choral reef of words you can rely on—

Here, wisps of jellyfish clouds kiss the cliff ’s outstretched pinkie and we,
content with a tiny square of quilt for us to lie on.

Farzana Marie

Farzana Marie grew up in Chile, California, and Kazakhstan. Her poetry and translations have appeared in print and online journals including The Rusty Nail, Adanna, Fourteen Hills, Zócalo, Antiphon, Guernica, The Atticus Review, and The Fourth River. She is the author of the nonfiction book Hearts for Sale! A Buyer’s Guide to Winning in Afghanistan (Worldwide Writings, 2013), a poetry chapbook, Letters to War and Lethe (Finishing Line Press, 2014), and a book of Persian Dari poetry in translation, Load Poems Like Guns: Women’s Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan (Holy Cow! Press, 2015). Find her online at farzanamarie.com and on Twitter @farzanamarie.

Sam Masler

Sam Masler is an educator, artist, and butcher. She is interested in the intersection of arts, social justice, and the environment, with a particular interest in sustainable food systems and food justice. She has an MA in food studies from Chatham University, where she studied urban farms and the communities that surround them.