Year 35

His joy seizes and shakes my heart
membrane smiles with pain pulsing veins
where love once ran

all beauty has its curse
female energy that brings life
chokes my dry breasts
and crackles winter leaves with March winds

spring rains love the earth tonite
with cool damp smells
and fertile dreams
that disappear with desert clouds

inside I ache
for your eyes to love mine
and fingers and lips to soothe
my shattered dreams
I press your hand to my womb
hoping someday you will love me
without fear that leaves me half a woman
the way he loves her
and brought life to her.

Yasmeen Najmi

from "Ankh" © 2004 Yasmeen Najmi

Winter Solstice

Night air crept toward the Rio
A familiar lover seduced by pinks and grays
that lure me across crisp brown palettes
of Yerba mansa and salt grass
I find myself at water's edge
again asking forgiveness, wondering
if all this will survive
our good intentions
a duck gossiping on a distant sandbar
laughed loudly at my intellectual concerns
safe from Gulf War thunder
and squealing tires at a nearby Sonic drive-in
cold ripples tickle thorny branches
black wings caress solstice skies
unified travelers, my eyes contemplate their journey
then lower to human horizons
content in the mystery.

Yasmeen Najmi

From "Ankh" © 2004 Yasmeen Najmi

You are my sea

You are my sea
a lost lover
I abandoned my oars and compass
content to be guided
by your mysterious rhythms and stars.

At night I hear your voice
and, like a soldier,
I submit without calculation
to the battle of waves and foam
I am the rock
you break yourself against
until I fall into you
with burning skin
and thirsty heart
I open and
you fill me
in your coves
I dive deep
and become the life inside you.

The moon and tide
took you from me, my love
but I wait at your shore
for your inevitable return.

Yasmeen Najmi

© 2005 Yasmeen Najmi

Perfect Shadow

You will be two, then three
I heard another voice speak to you
Through adrenaline beating my ears
For ten years
You were my perfect shadow

I smiled and shivered
You are not mine anymore
to hold in my box of failed love
and false destiny
That I opened when I needed proof
That he was not the one

A beautiful kite
I watched your colors vanish into cold blue light
You slipped from my hands
Or did I let you go?

Yasmeen Najmi

From "Ankh" © 2004 Yasmeen Najmi