Image: “Lahore #44” by Faizan Adil. “Song of a Masjid’s Floor” was written by Ammara Younas for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2024, and selected as the Series Editor’s Choice.
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Ammara Younas
SONG OF A MASJID’S FLOOR
I sang
to atoms emptied in a mother’s feet
replicating the prosody of Adhān itself
the dust trembling like a lost child
burgeoning parable-like when her feet
shot up vertically & as her face
descended to meet my face my eyes
did not have the heart to meet hers
mine torrid & hers torrential
I sang
to vowels lost into a father’s lips
thinking themselves muhajir
who don’t belong in tongues harvesting
love off-season but in the tenement
of Mihrab they found a home &
journeyed back & sugared his mouth
a spoonful of sweet persimmon & he
prayed take me before you take anyone
I sang
to a daughter adrift in the persistence
of memory as she hid desire in
the crevice of the ceramic floor
when amidst Sajdah she kissed me
homelike I cradled her like my own
her face dribbled down my arms
feathering gathering to become whole
until she abandoned it & went home
faceless she told me she’d finally
escape the guilt of being woman
the lone daughter of Hawwa
I sang
to a son whose feet gripped me
like hands holding up soapy
firmament of gods & though his touch
was hot mess he stayed mere inches
from visions of eden & though his
touch was slippery he distilled love
from abstract plucked flowers
from wastelands perfumed them
himself & left me with those flowers
& a smile that could sun
even elegies
I sang
to a child with no mother no father
his weight the heaviest to carry
here my tongue turned flamingo
too long for meaning to traverse
through as he asked me to return
the love he could’ve had I dreamed
of him turning into wild
cherry blossom
& if he sang back to me I’d float
outside my body and see seas
of psalms sewn into people & ceded to
me as they turned homeward
but he’d come vacant & never
leave
I sang
& sang & sang
swallowing sandals borrowing
bottle caps I birthed footprints lent
water & sang & sang to
no god but
human
—from Ekphrastic Challenge
July 2024, Series Editor’s Choice
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Comment from the series editor, Megan O’Reilly: “Two things immediately struck me about Faizan Adil’s artwork: First, the cultural and religious significance, and second, the sense that the figures in the foreground seem to be lost in their own worlds, as though each is a universe unto themselves. Ammara Younas’s poem prioritizes both of these elements. The poet paints a vivid tapestry of the life of a Muslim family, and though the poem is superbly cohesive, each stanza dedicated to a family member could easily stand alone as its own poem. The distinctive language, both earthy and elegant—‘tongues harvesting/love off-season’; ‘dust trembling like a lost child’—mirrors the image’s contrast between ornate reverence and human humility, a dichotomy that is also encapsulated in the poem’s last stanza.”
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