The Suppliant in White
I
You sit cross-legged at the edge of the night
A bowl of water at your feet
In the water you find your image
& are inconsolable
Once from this same bowl
You drank
Once from this same bowl
You ate
When you carry the bowl to your brother your brother
Is the wind
When you carry the bowl to your sister your sister
Is the gun
When you carry the bowl to your father your father
Is the shot
When you carry the bowl to your mother your mother
Is the cry
You don’t even have to beg
To become what you most fear
The first task of your life
Is to never return your gaze to that water
The second task of your life
Is to carry it everywhere, a gift
II
You open your mouth to speak
& you cannot speak
You touch a finger to your mouth
& it is a crack in the marble
You touch a finger to your neck
& it is the slow lift of starlings in fall
Sometimes you think this unknowing
Is beginning
& you are the wood
Sometimes you think this unknowing
Is the end
& you are the fire
The fire begins, the wood burns
You throw the bowl’s water over the burning
& watch
Like a thinned elk dressed in blue flowers
III
Now you must look out
Over the broken
& know that what is broken
Is not the world
The suffering you know
Is not the suffering of the stranger
It is your own
The violence you know
Is not the act of the stranger
It is your sustenance
Now you must look out
Over the one civilization of your soul
You wanted to redeem
You wanted to turn away from yourself
You wanted to be good
& now you are everywhere
The Night Between the Letter and the Voice
In the simpler dark: no angel, no book ––
What you remember
Is the face of the neighbor who hung
Her daughter's clothes on the line
& turned to see the color
Dusk took in the winter fog
All you wanted her to whisper
Was what you have been all this time
In the silence before the burning mosque
In the silence after the burning mosque
The men sing in the street
Dragging their heads like a cart of sweets
I have been to the cave
I have faced the still shapes of my language
I have let them enter & enter & enter
Safwan Khatib is from Indianapolis, Indiana. His work has previously appeared in the Adroit Journal and Word Riot. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets and the U.S. Student Fulbright Program.