in the refugee camp Moria on the island of Lesbos, women will avoid the toilets at night for fear of being raped.
the sand shifted
warm, suffocating as you
settled. you looked like a leatherback
turtle,
momma, the satin hijab rumpled like
dunes around your face
& the gull stabbing pitchfork
feet into the sandy nest,
his clawing cawing
calling
a pyrexia, pirouetting
the night
into oozing flame--
momma remember
the sculpture gallery where you whittled
women from nitroglycerine.
I caressed
your statue's pockmarked nose,
& when the Taliban
squeezed dynamite through studio windows
you dove past
the imploded mirror
fleeing
but Greece coated your escape
with molasses
and you tumbled into the tent islands
of Moria, slowly
curdling
--if i'd hatched sooner,
you wouldn't have returned
alone
to the nighttime sarabande
lapping between your legs
like waves
you never taught me before you
if the line for broken
latrines in Moria stretch into
mothers or daughters
because both
might drown
in starry-eyed men
& cutting waves of knives
i wished you hadn't gouged out a way
off the island.
i slowly thirst as the absence
desertifies,
the wooden catalepsy cracking
waves of acrimony
desperation crash
over the threshold
i dive
into the beaks of gulls or
waves
it doesn't
matter