into ل ’s       and Allah is
a mutilation
of meaning in 

prayers       are refrains
of nursery rhymes       the children
draw a fighter
plane below
names of the extinct

birds         and emperors
cross the Indus
for mangoes— light
sweetened, sweating

golden     sun-
-flower stalks
the indigo          labourer
on her way to where the day’s
poems are powdered to

an ellipsis        pierces tales of djinn
a Hazara mosque erupts
in pigeons         a boy
somersaults across embellished

Mecca, Mecca!
If you are home
to God and only 
hours
from Jerusalem      send
a message where
the map is still

green with olives. Look there, love
is a thing 
farther
than the bloody moon
where nuclei cannot be

split               daily
bread and pomegranates
with me, jaana, bite and
savour these
tautened globules

of blood       on tongues
I know one thing:
it alefs,
and it alefs.