Sharing

Nouf is proof God does not want me to die     a horse-girl with horse-hair who loves even the flies will not swat them    carries them outside with a glass-and-paper trap she brims with glee    high praise for bicycle lanes pie steeples the colour of sea foam seedless tangerines she collects fallen leaves celebrates    precipitation by running outside because raised in a desert where she never saw a cloud    we two hijabi girls in a non-hijabi world we smoke    weed on her roof eat all the mana’eesh her mama stacked in the freezer    pray together dance barefoot in the fresh snow compare kneecaps and collarbones wake up pantsless with my head in her lap her hand in my hair    love you coocoo    love you nouf    every june when her mama visits from khobar nouf brings a backpack full of haram to my condo     what's in the bag nouf? jeans and love letters half a joint for sunny days septum-ring hardcopies of fatema mernissi and aisha geissinger a jar    she never opens with her sweeterman's breath inside nouf I say nouf I'm in love and she ululates on the subway    nouf wait wait listen he’s married she swallows her tongue like a mollusk coughs it pickled back up to her sad-glad mouth coocoo start from the beginning.