only unborn children can create this much suffering. dressed as lovers they invade my senses, making me nostalgic for that which i have conquered: empty desire and shallow lust. prey to inferior men, to the structures programmed into my bones, my wheat skin. myth of loneliness, destroy yourself. i betray my ancestors’ prescriptions unto my life, the light of a million indian women fueling my rebellion. slavery, forced sex, coerced marriage. a brothel fantasy played out, mongolian-style, at bengali weddings. how much money will be enough to win the bride behind the gilded door?

the promises i made in exchange for this body. i must break them now in order to keep them, to stay on course. dealings within the bounds of bloodlines, my lies of loyalty born of sly innocence. my need, sated outside the enclosure of marital duty, evokes their revenge: headaches and my flesh drained of fire. i leave my body when they strike; the pain dulling, tangible enough to evacuate the spirit.

the skin, peeled back, reveals muscle. the power of my body to diffuse and gather energies, to move and direct their flow, subjugates my environment. transforms it. sorcery of my birth, cunning of my arrival into this place, this time. all was desired and manifested according to my will. and to what new forces will i become mother during this visit? the center of each hand flickers with certain ability, invisibly building through my fingers.

© 2010 tahminah zaman

to come, that which surpasses the realm of flesh. stone formed around principles, in time, cracks. bursts open hesitation.

lead lips to water, clear lungs of lead, shake the tree of being until her leaves fall away, expose her branches naked. the earth seeded and wet, there is nothing more to be done. the green will reveal itself, flowers arrive when due. not before. nature never tardy, the sky never dry, never cruel, without reason. remember, and wait.

© 2010 tahminah zaman

copper-lined veins
remembered fragments welded
coiled promises

death of before,
breath forgotten in waves
broken
divide unto themselves, double
helix tomorrow drawn
as fired chariot

© 2010 tahminah zaman

the freeway exit where my sister took her own life last year, park boulevard. i passed it feeling that maybe it didn’t happen. is my body, my soul, capable of such massive forgetting? she returns to me when i cross solano avenue in albany, a place we never walked together. a haze of rage and disbelief shields me from that indescribable death. the truth descends with the gravity of saturn and earth combined, a leaden, muddy burden. before i can realize that i have abandoned my body for a moment while i grieve, i am eating baba ganoush, the meal we shared most often. too much tahini, so much i can hardly taste the eggplant. lemonade speckled with pulverized mint leaves, their aroma purging the pain of remembering.

there is something inescapable about writing, unpredictable as to what words will write themselves next. like memory, a string unbroken by its very brokenness, the pieces of a shattered window, unified in their defiance of unity. the heart is bruised and bent in a rhythm of an ordered disorder, crumbs of past and future bleeding the present of its seeming certainty and wholeness. the body responds to signs cemented into the landscape: a brick wall, patch of grass, the coroner’s office, a stop sign emblazoned with letters of a secret alphabet. what remains is the movement between static elements, wind forcing apart the branches of a tree, buildings in ruin, fresh flowers thrust into a vase in the center of chaos.

© 2010 tahminah zaman

my travels have taken me to so many worlds, through eras i have forgotten. the temporary nature of everything, the permanence of pain, have scarred my soul beneath the surface of my skin. when you were taken from me i could no longer speak your name. robbed of my reflection, i carried the memory of losing you in my pocket. hundreds of years have passed and the terror of abandonment remains.

this time, a cellar wrapped in gray light becomes my private chamber. i sit alone remembering all the remnants of you; the gentleness of your gaze, percussion of your laughter, fullness of grinning lips, sweat the texture of silk soaking skin and cotton sheets, the grip of your arms around my body in sleep. the darkness within permeates the room, emptying itself from me. were you taken so that the next time we met, i would value you even more? god is a careful teacher, her lessons exploding illusions. life is not forever; only a few years or decades in which to express my love, my ecstasy, my gratitude at your return.

this time, stay. this time, grow old beside me over a whole lifetime: making love and eating together, laughing and grieving as one, moving with fingers entwined. this time, let me love you longer, i am a young woman, i have much to give. my devotion is as old as the earth, i have saved this sweetness for centuries, silent and incomplete. choose me.

© 2010 tahminah zaman

© 2010 tahminah zaman

© 2010 tahminah zaman

desire, her promises and traps. expectations move to frustration, not satisfaction. why does chaos arise from need, from longing? there is some being here, some persistent soul that tells me this chaos must be, rushing a natural state of being. probably an unborn child, forcing its will upon me, crowding out my existing plans. to enjoy this year, to savor every moment of the developing future, days packed with laughter and growth, slowing down to notice that all i want is here.

the craze stalls as these words are written. there will be long walks, and trees, clouds, rocks. there is much to learn about love, her endless forms, innumerable. much to observe, artworks of cooking and poetry to embark upon. debts of love forgiven, discovering the unchanging–again. s l o w n e s s — a forgotten art. food, lovemaking, marriage. all that tastes better unrushed. the tarot, secrets of the stars, ancient ways were lost to me before i exhumed them. slowness, too, i will know well. i will become.

“at times, going slow is how to move fast”

© 2010 tahminah zaman

of course, a lack of readiness. the last time around i was coerced into silence, into behaving within the chalk outlines of unforgiving rules. obedient. then, i returned toward the sign of sagittarius, overturning all i obeyed before. turning principles on their heads, watching the reversals of gravity and matter, documenting the movement from tradition to freedom. it is natural, to some extent, to fear that which we do not understand; easier to dismiss the unknown than to admit fear; simpler to explode in frustration than submit to humanness.

so many cycles of birth and death, rebirth, i’ve forgotten the knowledge i carry from before. the remembering is jarring, i find holes torn in my being from another time, another body i don’t recall. was my skin the same wheat brown, did my eagle’s eyes stare red into sun then? did my nails grow square into claws i was not allowed to use for self-defense, as i do now? hundreds of years spent learning a single lesson: the journey of self-discovery blooms from within. a thousand opened doors but he doesn’t enter. temple of desire, close your gates now.

within the stillness, between lessons, i sit alone. lost and gained, the principles and rules change. moving into the future, there is always a mark on that which is left behind. hurdles transcended, fading with each forward step. what kind of lover does a priestess, a sorceress, a magician take? the next destination, here. an instant suspended midair. no longer waiting but knowing.

© 2010 tahminah zaman

poems written and covered in leather
leaves bound in gold thread
high on laddered shelves

syllables cocoon around bodies
into a language of refuge

each new-soldered word
fighting the others for audience

whose history do these letters recall?
on whose grave does the tongue
of a speaker step?

what do beautiful words do?
shelter us from outside view.

the key to any locked tower
is a word;
enclosed spaces promise privacy

if i learn your dialect
will you include me?