after “I Didn’t Apologize to the Well” by Mahmoud
Darwish (translated from Arabic by Fady Joudah)

Because who’s to say the well would’ve accepted
me, a trout holding water in its mouth like it might own
something of its universe. I cup my palms
full of its water thinking to shift my fingers and let it
feed something more worthy. Dear well, I’m sorry
but if I apologize the poem is no longer about you.
If I apologize, I might say something like
Celan: My grief is abandoning you—
only I’d mean it slower. Grief never leaves
the way the body holding it does. Remember
to apologize to the well, Alexa says my shame.
So I gather up my rope and coil it around my waist
like the taraz belts I’d spent nights trying
to embroider onto pillowcases so I might sleep
under the fields of koulou once more. I lowered into the well—
consented to living as someone else for a while—
spoke to myself from the abyss like a truth
I couldn’t access—let my body walk in meadows
and forbade it from dance. I put myself in harm’s way
as a way of asking if I was ready to live. I never apologized
for that either. You don’t apologize for sitting shiva.
Everyone expects the chairs low like that, pressing
their backs down as far as they can. Everyone knows
the cloth is torn from the suit or the dress, and the rabbi says
You are broken. I thanked the rabbi when he tore the cloth
from my jacket, and he looked at me a moment longer
than the others. I had to figure a way to say thank you
to the well—otherwise I’d never have said anything at all.