My dead dogs float
like dandelion seeds to be near me,
their faces on my face, one miraculous
beast. In the beginning there was something
more than humans. God existed alone
in eternity and said, “Be.”
On Wednesday, there were angels.
On Thursday, the jinn.
The world rests on the back of a bull, the fin of a fish.
It explains the stampeding and swimming.
Here my love
is unfamiliar. Push a finger
through my palm.
Behold my feral face in the mirror.
This is where the wind comes from: between
sleep and wake
where the dead are not really dead.
An eternity of almost touching.
—Ruth Awad (Honey Literary)