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By Kazim Ali

I fear dispersal but the resounding really sounds may be full of echo
or echolocation for the next round

Eye rowed in the guest book of God my many sacred tongues
body and bow

Fingers spell now all the spaces I open
You now verse now open oh pen

Cacti quiver for a century
In the desert I swam myself earthword to know

No time on earth and no breath no dearth
Hollowed out into architecture eternal

Who argues with rhyme or snow
Who knows the space in your here

The space in the storm so finely bowed
The space in snow no one nears

Poet Bio

Kazim Ali, a brown man with salt-and-pepper curly hair and smoky eyes, smiles at you.

Poet, editor, and prose writer Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian descent. In 2003 Ali co-founded Nightboat Books and served as the press’s publisher until 2007. Ali has taught at Oberlin College and the low-residency Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. He lives in Oberlin, Ohio.

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