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