We have finished prayer
upon that rare desert rain,
its purple current
skating the shutters
and velvet prayer rugs.
I use my fingers
to supplicate
for the America
I’ll return to,
for the idyll of Egypt
that will linger,
interred under sugarcane.
You sit next to me
with one hand
sunk on my back
like the strap of a guitar
weighted with wounds,
the other letting a cigarette
shrivel to dust.
I hear the roots
of my name
spinning like a wet towel
to conquer the smoke,
to lead the matter
from the fibers
of an oak grain.
You direct your body
towards the Qibla,
whispering to God
here is the part of me
I give to the world.
Composition
For my father and after Purple Rain.