pirouette: mouvements i & ii ————————————— i. arching in the conservatory violins and cellos and beautiful double basses laid beneath her flats, whispering thinly/ so thin even for a swan in winter; but in spending my evenings washing her claws i turned my palms to opera halls ii. my love, she’s like a raven come to my window with a broken wing after brokeback mountain and “map of the stars” ———————————————————— remember when i used the weekends for temporary lovers the calendar and you? you : waiting upon the sofa, the velvet like your head the day you buzzed it. the months gone are many, the memories are few. politics of devotion i remember seeing him after he got sober give me a hug long enough to know he was just kind en- ough orpheus 2013 ——————— i’m glad i knew you before the wool coats and oaky brown highlights in your hair before your mouth tasted like cigarettes and cheap sex. before they took down the framed portrait of your class; you were older than me but now they tack me up; i feel all the more like a kid ‘you’ d look a god in a wool coat’. that’s the edges slowly ungluing themselves and beginning to peel ( h )allaway, hoping to find you still orpheus in the hallway and you my you-rydice i will write a thousand poems and many more i will sing until you are impressed/ onto the page
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Shaik Aqeel (he/him) is a creative trying to capture the ever-moving haze of youth in his work. He is a part of sploosh!, a youth literary collective, and can often be found fawning over his records.