Begin Your Acts of Life Again
Saba Khaliq
Air that room your father
Built for your siblings before his one
Child left for God before everyone else,
Dye your hair silver and
Enter the last quarter of your life
Floating, dancing, digging
Golden soils and
Humming poor old Country Roads
In your uncle’s backyard
Just before it rains stones of frost,
Keep mending that boat till you see
Life in its toddler engravings your friends
Mocked every time they visited after college with their
New stuff, new slangs, new jobs, new friends,
Out goes your fisted laugh in bed with a
Perfect kick inside the cozy
Quilt with red flowers and hideous pears
Retrieved from your greedy niece and her
Slouchy husband snoring his little life away,
Touch that mousy nose of your boy
Upped in good humor or
Vexation in that photograph you took last century,
Where did you put your dreadful
X-rays, declaring you’re not fit for
Your own life? Forget. Go.
Zip up all evidence of grief today.
Note: this was the first time I tried writing an abecedarian poem, and I’m now convinced that the hard hand of order can be liberating and beautiful.