Friday Heals More Wounds Than Salt

By Fatihah Quadri Eniola

A talkative bird tries squeezing itself into a hole

in the perforation but its body seems too heavy

to spy. It’s Jumuah, you could feel the breeziness of

Kahf digging a passage through your ears everywhere

you try hiding. My mother is happy, she recites Karf

with the whole of her heart, as if there is a side of

paradise she is busy viewing in a garden

of purple flowers.

 

I’m not supposed to weep at this, a poem carved on

 a sunny Friday noon deserves pampering— & milk—&

honey— & smiles— & a bowl of Zamzam. But what

happens to a black girl who is too anxious to fly into the sky

of ecstasy? Can she touch heaven & bounce into God’s ministry?

 

 Can grief…

No! I won’t tell you about my grief. I will envelope my cries

to meet God at the masjid, let the ablution water lead my grief astray,

& pour light into the dark holes of my eyes on every Sajdah.

 

Fatihah Quadri Eniola is a Nigerian poet and member of HCAF (Hilltop creative arts foundation) and Nibstears Poetry Cave. Her work have appeared or are forthcoming in Kalahari Review, Beatnik Cowboy, World Voices magazine, Notion press, De Curated, Syncronized Chaos and elsewhere.