I made a man from clay and he turned me
into bone. Let me bury myself aadam under
his skin. Broke all my other faces to fit into
a home he ibrahim’ed from straw and
sunlight. I followed a boy to a pair of
mountains and he left me in the sand. Ran
seven times between their aching breasts. I
ran so far I forgot my own God. My name
spilling out like oil. Turned me dirty
Zamzam 2 against the belly of a desert. I ran
so far for a man I crumpled myself
into a holy book and he chewed me
into dynamite.
1. Ar-Rahmon – One of the 99 names of God in the Quran (The Most Beneficent)
Rahm – Womb in Arabic
2. Zamzam – A holy well in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that, according to Islamic mythology, is a miraculously generated source of water from God thousands of years ago by Hagar and Abraham’s infant son Ismael.
