Editors’ Note: The following poem by Nusaiba Imady is part of the notebook I Want Sky, a collection of essays, poems, fiction, and hybrid work honoring Sarah Hegazy’s one irreplaceable life, and the lives of all LGBTQ+ Arabs and people of the SWANA region and its diaspora, and, too often, the risk inherent in their visibility. Edited by Mariam Bazeed and published as a part of a partnership with Mizna, the notebook will also be available as a print issue, released this summer. Continue reading work published in this series here.

Hind On the Death of Al-Zarka

Should you die my beloved
I will become a dyke
cut my hair to the scalp
demand history to know wrong
is done if you are taken from me 

I will become the unpaid Nāiha
beating my chest in rage
if they inter you in the ground
where I cannot follow 

I will become the ascetic
milk souring on my tongue
curdling in my stomach

                                                            Can you imagine how rough silk will be? 

I will become the jinn
walking between tents and dreams
whispering to Atlal Layla until the sands
know only your name 

We will become history contested

half laughing

half expurgation
 

Ishtar welcomes me in the aftermath
holds my hand 
guides me to your garden
shows me thousands of girls
                                                                          with your eyes and my smile

looking at our deathless devotion
knowing that we will always call for them