High Atlas
These intricate, Moroccan windows leak the softest light
Gunpowder with mint and sugar served in a silver teapot
The help mouthing shukran to me, shukran shukran
Terracotta in sun, the glory of a Riad unfolds inward
Like the idea of a woman
A courtyard shielded from summer’s austerity
Because God insists the warm clay of the body is a farce
Against wonders wondering themselves in the interior
Clematis cirrusis Iris palaestina Berberis vulgaris
These primordial tiles, date palms squared in the icy atrium
A land not mine, but like mine
I moved my life toward it
The glare of what this juniper steppe might do
To have an address
To have a you
Now I cannot stand it
This cold insulation Blue ceramics My soul’s cheap urgency
At the gate, a cat wails for more, evening singes her
Poor fool
Even the ancient architects knew waiting is cruel
That redemption is a promise not to be trusted
Because what is feral will remain so forever
And we must hunt for scraps as we hunt for the warmth of a hand
Everywhere I go the same detectable loneliness, my aboriginal shame
I am asked if I am Berber for I lack the language here
To be unlanguaged, then
To be a dream
Ber Ber as in the sound an animal emits
Ber Ber as in the sound of dusk when it summons its lessons in deprivation
But whatever will come, it already came
Like the sham of my mouth longing each evening
To grow with the vowels of your name
•••
Aria Aber was raised in Germany, where she was born to Afghan refugees. She is the author of Hard Damage (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and a Whiting Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New Republic, The Paris Review Daily, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor of BOAAT Journal.