‍After Montréal, my beloved city

“My love lasts more than my lifetime,” I say in Arabic.

Montréal & I shake our hips night & day in Arabic.

“We all live seven lives. There’ll always be birds flocking in

 even numbers,” I heard on the subway in Arabic.

Over the seabed, fish snivelled when the son left. His eyes,

arrows tearing the moon. We sing, we pray in Arabic.

Arabic would’ve never been were it not for our eyes.

O yesteryear poising on eyelids, grey in Arabic.

If you’re in love, why deny it? All endearments are one.

Paint me a mural in an alleyway in Arabic.

I watched his mouth trail my body, called him “ya habibi.”

I sniffed his body hair. I let him lay in Arabic.

I cry & laugh better in English, my now mother tongue.

I have never found a mother per se in Arabic.

I dream of the word « revenir » & the rest is English

until I rise to the Moors’ songs. We stay in Arabic.

Here, take this cradled tongue, this propagated love, this sown

hope. This isn’t ghazal. It’s your first bouquet in Arabic.

Author’s note: Over the seabed, fish snivelled when the son left is in reference to a traditional Iraqi song titled “Rabaytak Zgayroun Hassan”; the line If you’re in love, why deny it? is from the song “Madam Teheb Betenker Leih” by Umm Kulthum (1898-1975).