Ghazal for Marriage at Middle Age
the bed is half pristine. like a desert
disrupted by fresh rubble. I want you
here, to make a mess of things together.
we are older these days yet I want you
all the time, the way a young man’s desires
presses on meals, work, worship. I want you
to know this, but somehow train myself not
to say it. silence lurks in I want you
as if the phrase enacts violence. a bruise
forms on my tongue. you flinch when I want you
and then obligation catches in your throat,
a bird trapped until you acquiesce. I want you
to fill up the void heavy on my chest
that language does not satiate. I want you
to need my warmth even in the summer,
to relish the taste of me. I want you
to lap at me like I am an oasis.
I will not call us old just yet. I want you
to feel it, not like a straightjacket, but
like the air we breath, the ways I want you.
C.C. Apap teaches literature at Oakland University in the northern suburbs of Detroit. His poetry has been featured or is forthcoming in Belt Magazine, Alba, The Thimble Literary Magazine, Roi Fainéant and The Hooghly Review.
The Marbled Sigh 