Qibla

Qibla

Qibla

Black Stone, you promised
me in the next
world you would
have a tongue, be
a voice

For those
who touched you
the ones who walk on
unspeakable
thorns

Who could deny
the lure of mute
absolution, no
questions asked
no penances
to atone

The kiss
of stone was
soft, even as
the lips of linen on
the cusp of morning’s
bone

Barely
lucid, barely
there, I stumbled
past my present
with an empty
hand

I die
quietly a single
pomegranate seed
rolling in between
the folds of day and
night

Black Stone you come wearing
darkness like a subtle
skin, friend, lover, sole
companion amid the
hordes that gather
chomping at
the bit

Of tethered time
the spin &
spit, rite of
repetition to propel
the bonded from womb
to tomb

And yet
I cannot undo
the threads woven
in my outstretched
palms the ones
you play in catching
fishes and bubbles
and worlds that
roam

In my mind, opening
each moment like
a gift, squealing, it
is this that keeps
me going, this
that I wake to, this
that I hold
fast

Until the next
dim-time wafts
veil of indigo like
a net darkening
the waters
of sky

This is
what wraps me
entraps me sky
fish in your liminal
hour I drown
to a parallel
shore

Night, I hoard
your treasures in
my eyes, in their
deep blackness
I keep you close as
my familiar, the one
I cannot
lose

Night, you are
my touch-stone
test of spiritual gold
the one I pour
my secrets to, the
lone talisman
I hold

In between
these realms of
unstitched skin;
the naked pilgrimage
of soul