Sufi, Tamara Turk

 

 

In the desert

we speak of aquifers,

how they are the spaces

between things,

how they hold water

to quench thousands.

 

All the cracks and crevices,

the small places between stones

and pebbles—

 

water for thousands.

 

If the spaces between bodies

would leave me anything

but parched,

I wouldn’t dwell on a man

pressed up

against my stomach,

his back in the clutch

of my palm,

shoulder blades pointed and strong,

an ebb, a rising, a lion’s grasp

of movement.

 

In the spaces between things are lions,

curled up

between stones, sleeping

in the dens of thousands.