George Abraham is a Palestinian-American Poet, Activist, and Engineering PhD Candidate at Harvard University. He is the author of two chapbooks: al youm (the Atlas Review, 2017), and the specimen’s apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019). His poetry and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Tin House, Rattle, Washington Square Review, Mizna, Puerto del Sol, and anthologies such as Bettering American Poetry, Nepantla, and the Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian Literature Anthology. You can find him on Twitter/Instagram @IntifadaBatata.
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maqam of moonlight, for the wandering
to be read from right to left, after Marwa Helal
a ask to – blood of conjuring a is desire of know i what
& sweat its in humid listless it was or me of nation tired
– deviance quantum & stochasticity own its in lost : entropy
carries it blood the hence & design its through thing a name to learned we
type what – is it night of type what on depending to or – on preys &
carries air the humid heavy of
relics fragile before you like men ruined i’ve , yes
count body my marked i catacomb brief a chest themselves of
lose never beast this lest erosion refusing scar it let & nails brittle with
made he caverns the forget or ,marrow of dry sucked bones of count
endless & unexplored perimeters its in even yes : flight refusing skeletons of
planet this heart sweet reach beyond stratosphere or body as
– us of both the for claustrophobic too is
on unraveling
i never wanted to unlove you
like this: trees shivering thread-
bare in fracturing chill; faint body
shadows dancing behind subway
lights like drifting ghosts;
the city undressing itself
of you like a music -less season –
i have never known winter this
intimately. Here’s the street we waltzed
in huddled coats, our breaths, intertwining
smoke vortices, i only wanted someone
to inhale the substance of me – to make
Atlas of your hands & tear down my sky in
slow motion; snowflakes pirouetting, chaotic
axes – i loved best the flurry of you. Every time
i’d empty myself of your memory, the distance
frostbit my lungs & i would make sanctuary
of your bed, becoming constricting throat &
tachycardia again – here’s the train station
you first abandoned me to meet her, like you
didn’t hear glass screaming on your way
out; here’s the window i almost embraced
too lovingly & became the snow -fall;
here’s the street i first imploded on you for
the devil you fell in love with & i get
it – we all have to dance with demons
to find God in ourselves & maybe that’s
the only way i know how to love – to give my
self, blessed sacrifice, to a God of
unraveling hands; most holy inconvenience,
i found home in your type of empty. By which
i mean, i found myself in you & i know you
intended none of this; God of scalding fingers
& emerging firestorm; you, who resurrected
me from my own tomb, gauze wrapped & blood
-stained, i know you didn’t mean to kill me. You
were 2 years of trauma & arms i could die in;
there’s praise in being held so tightly i almost felt
human again. In warmth expelling winter’s loneliness
from my architecture. In the infinitesimal
fragment of you that lives & swells in me; It
sings to me some nights. A lullaby that
could numb a warfront quiet; there’s resistance in
that. This pulsing riot. Maybe i loved best the
rebellion of us; two diasporas folding
into each other in a single bed frame, ashes
to ashes, dust to dust; still here
we’re still breathing –
