[shelter]

1st Draft (Poetry)
"Nur Hilya"
08 April

Spoiler for Nur Hilya (1st Draft):

Nur Hilya

"Apa macham melayu punye?" she asks,
curious smile breaks in the wake of her words.
She assumes I understand, assumes an answer
when there aren’t easy ones. But I ride the
swift current of a nod –
drenched on a shore of meanings
we share.

"Kau bersembahyang apa?" she questions –
earnestly – seeking gospel-truth. She questions –
picks at the way I turn my tongue to say
my grace before meals. But like rain from heaven,
post-prayer my vision plumes upward:
from darkness, to her burning eyes,
like lighthouses –

cast on a table-shaped sea of untouched food
fenced in by our waiting arms.

"What kind of Muslim are you?" She ventures on,
demands an answer which I, hungry on her
words, fear will
dim the light from her face.
And swept away, meanings scramble to buoy our gaze together when I
loosen them with the words:
"aku Nasrani ah".

Pause. We are adrift:
and then the curtain of her lashes part the flash of her eyes
like diamonds in the mist.
She says – makan lah…eat –
she spills me a grin.

And we resume dinner.

NOTE: I realize I might be breaking some EMDAS Competition rules by posting this. But I hope PM will allow me to keep the poem to stay on the entries page as I try to edit it into a form that doesn't include non-English phrases.