The Names

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Poet. Believer. Infidel.
Lover. Atheist. Bitch

These are mine.

Memorise them. Slake tongue
with them. Feed your thirst.
Open them to pure midnight
and turn them to gold.

Stripped of them,
I am unsyncopated,

flat as slate, diminished
by your thick face in dreams.

It is not enough to know the names.

You must speak them loudly
in rooms, pile them into cars
on smoggy evenings and drive
them around the city, check them
in as misshapen lumps of baggage
on cheap flights, hurl them
across continents.

This is who I am, you must say.
(Not so much who, as what
or perhaps, which and how.)

But what if a gun cracks your sleep open
and you’re running through
fields of blood?

and you’re on your knees,
arms clenched around your belly
for an unnameable loss?

and you don’t know if the shriek
will twirl in mid-air and disappear?

Will you know if something is still true
when there are no names for it?

*First published at Kritya

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