Asiya Wadud

the ferries encumber their own weight. they pass each other at close range. the unlikely vessels transmit their cargo. all the bodies carry on. everyone on board is black. everyone covets a faithful salvage. the carrion circle overhead. they patiently stake out the rippling time. then time shirks us and newspapers yellow. time evidenced in furled edges. I wanted to hold their full weight in my palm. palm is plan spelled oblong. the plan was to meet in the Alpujarras, work the farms til our good bones yellowed. work the earth til it shone gold black. we note the slippage of time. the spilling vessel, the elastic edges. the lax maps. the precedent. they establish the changing need: less fuel, pack the vessel, reference the Middle Passage etches for knowledge of how the ship is packed. how the threads rope us into a seamless package: quietude, gaped earth, monumental loss. the crisp cutting siren of the new day dawning. the shoreline with its subtleties and the mirror image that we name this duty.

the spilling vessel, the elastic edges. the lax maps. the precedent. we cut our losses — we named them knowledge we came back heavy we reached for the narrows. we lived in yeses and gracious miracles. meanwhile, in our mourning: islands remember everything, that’s how they subsist immemorial. they carry on hopeful that the archipelago remits light. the island searches out the light, and it is easy to find when you’re primed for looking.

we trusted in the cutting sea. subcutaneously we are gold. our livers are fatty. our lungs contain the dense, unkempt air. the mandible cuts fear. the ulna refracts elastic edges. the wave frequency extends aeternum. I intend to measure the distance. we all supplicate and keen. we all supplicate and cup an exacting distance.

the boats pass each other at close range. I count 77 bodies. 77 shoulder girdles abutting the wind. the unlikely vessels disgorge their cargo. colony and agony rhyme in duress. all the bodies carry on. I must confess the carrion circle overhead. when time passes, newspapers yellow. the obituaries name a weighted coffin. the lives never lose significance. we were born, each of us manifold, and that’s how we’ll die, too, subcutaneously gold.

the edges furl to show where time waned. I wanted to hold their full weight in my palm. palm is plan spelled oblong. the plan was to meet. Palermo anciently slips with the tides. the spilling vessel, the elastic edges. the lax maps. the precedent. how the threads rope us into a seamless package: quietude, gaped earth, monumental loss. the crisp cutting siren of a day delivering. the shoreline with its subtleties and the alkaline duty, equally of self and of a distant progeny.