Shadi Eskandani

Homecoming (40 days of mourning)

Sun blisters flesh saffron. Lips
to cracked soil, she scrapes across salted earth
grates you into her skin. Desert in her bones
barefoot lineage. Love.
The day the wind took her
you walked with open palms
scorched feet through sand, sifting her song.
A dua for the dust,
prayer for return.
She is here now, bibi
dragging herself raw. Landscape severe
like love, like you no longer here
carrying the sun in your mouth.
Forty days since.
White cloth shrouds, you rest eternal
your aching feet beneath mounds of clay
as the sound of your cadence, eases her skin,
guiding her. Home.