Curtain

by Manal Ahmed

The moon is skewed, 

thumbtacked into black fog, 

its light all lopsided 

and soft, 

as if 

poured through a lampshade 

or an old tea-strainer. 

I feel foolish. 

Pricked red by the shame of a 

liquid plea 

still untouched. 

The curtain is 

cinched high above the grandfather clock, 

so that the room is 

poured with darkness 

alive and glistening, 

perfect– 

if not for the cloudy milk 

of this shaft of injured light. 

The night is a tender bruise 

pressed with stubborn prayer– 

that final salve, most impossible of balms. 

Stained moonlight pools in, 

dimmed by the watery pulse 

of an overhead cloud. 

I sit under the darkness hoisted 

clean above me 

Asking please will you come home now that night is falling? 

So simple and sharp my request, 

like a curtain cinched, 

or hair pulled back, 

tight, chestnut braid trailing down 

the thin folds of a pale neck.

A knife glides gently into the tissue of a plum 

Sears through purple skin 

slick moonlight leaking out, 

juice the color of dusk. 

a punctured meal 

for two. 

The bruise–an opening to a fleshy wound, clean and wet. 

This weighty silence, so 

sharp and metallic; 

a blade 

that has not yet touched the warm yolk of a fruit. 

Only the soft drum of midnight rain 

and in the center 

in the thick, lonely nucleus of the night, 

the faint sound of 

a shadow sucking 

sweet pulp.

---

visual by Hamaad Hafeez.