Your face merits flowers

Everything feels like a poem or a prayer

“Ton visage mérite des fleurs”

Ibarhim tells you

he’s right, your face does merit flowers

pockets of poppies lay across the land like confetti

You look up and tell me about the Arabic word ‘Sakab’ -

a horse so graceful it moves like running water

I think of the time that’s shaping this love

the way water carves rock 

and wonder what would it feel like to pause five times a day to pray

To pay attention, religiously

The illicit stinging of sun on skin

Hands always, still, reaching to find each other 

The scent of orange blossom which permeates everything, including me

He said it would feel like the earth falling away

but I was floating yet tethered

both, and.

Everything feels like a poem or a prayer