The Imaginative

 

 

 

No veil, no cigarettes, no viewing

of "The Midnight Express -- makes them wonder

if she is truly Turkish

and has smuggled in an accent

that lets her sound mid-eastern.

 

Yet, she knows the ways of  old

Muslin women living in the back

streets of  Ankara. How to curse/cure acne

with a red apple and rose thorns. ( Which could account

for her polished skin.)  How circles have

the potential to become dangerous

like a ring, a web, a dance of ideas

that spins into white silence,  the blank chaos

of wanting to write but not knowing

what to choose. Themes rise from the lamp smoke

of her subconscious -- all gathering

 

in The Gathering Place Of The Jinn. Things that could

make her seem a concubine or cerebral wife, poignant

or political, too foreign familiar. The ephemeral

falls in-between places of routine, cobwebbing

corner and bone.  She does not fear

but fetches it with an open embrace

never allowing herself to feel

enclosed -- or melt down the moon

into something solid and smooth.

A lead amulet that keeps her safe.