Today's poem is by Nathalie Handal

Aletheia
       

[ 1 l
They forget we are women.
They keep forgetting.

They say they can't see us, or see
Astante, Aphrodite, Isis, Venus, Mary,

The Lady, Santa Sophia, the Holy Spirit,
the Phoenician and Assyrian goddesses,

but we give birth
and keep reinventing worlds.

We tell them
our body isn't a stage

to feature their weakness.
We tell them

they can't drop their fears
or kneel to pray,

we won't testify,
won't listen,

won't argue with their stillness
or barricades.

We tell them
their sorrow can't wait inside us

to fade, nor can they
steal our beauty.

We carry our harvest songs
in our bodies

[ 2 l
Suddenly, we remember
time is slanted inside

like statues tilted
after an earthquake.

Suddenly, Ophelia and Sappho
show us our sacred texts,

tell us to take our desires
to different cities

to surrender to them
differently how

else can
we liberate

what's been burning
for centuries?

What is real in the world?
What do we find

at the edge of the last gaze
of the heart?

What is divine in our bodies,
what is lost?

[ 3 l
She was not free
to open herself.

She was not able
to open the rain with her hand

and dress her hair
with a garden.

She was not able
to care for her children in illness

or buy food or stop the earth
from flaring inside.

She was not
allowed to discover

the sea or noon,
relics or goddesses.

She was not free
to name herself

or use vowels,
fashion, or features,

even if she voted
for her soul.

She was not free
to give her body a river

to turn rain into
life into her.

But she came
to be seen.

She is seen.
She is seen.

from Palermo to Rome,
Alexandria to Saigon to Accra,

even when the night
tries to split our dreams.

Like tired muscles,
like small boats drifting

from their owners to free
their bodies of the world,

we move gently
but definitely.

They forget we are angels.
They keep forgetting.

[ 4 l
They ignore us
as if we aren't part of history,

they walk past us
as if we didn't show them

the moon, the sun,
and the soul,

as if we aren't the most sensual
world in the world,

as if we don't teach them
Regulus is the brightest star in Leo.

Yet whatever they try
we still stand,

we stand we stand we stand
and sing with a bassoon and bang.

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Copyright © 2024 Nathalie Handal All rights reserved
from Volo
Diode Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission