What Do I Do With This Body

Poem by Sara A. Farooqi

FROM HER FOREHEADS KISSING EARTH POETRY COLLECTION

FEATURED SELECTION IN OUR SPRING 2025 OPEN CALL

Who will wash me when I’m dead

Wrap me in sheets, white, crisp

Sprinkle the rose water

I kneel before the silence, whispering the words You gifted

The words that broke through into this dimension

A storm raining pearls

A collision, a friction that shifted us closer to

You

To ourselves

To the You that existed in Us.

What do I do with this body?

I was taught the movements.

I didn’t know them.

The angle of the spine, the angle of the arms.

Tradition is a shovel.

Dig.

— Sara A. Farooqi

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The Turning of Hearts: Witnessing the Semá in Bali