In Place of River I’ll Use [God]

By EZZA AHMED

Ten days behind my tongue
summer in the diasporic, 
riding thick in the smell of [God]
and fresh cloves.

By [God] I mean the monsoon season
where water appeared in snake-like streams 
erasing all traces of my
present tense.

I guess I didn’t mind,
because the ground would wet into a fresh mirror
which really meant that I was
[God ?]

And I know, when [God]
calls out to you,
you only look back once. 

[Purchase Issue 31 here.] 

Ezza Ahmed is an educator and poet based in New York City. Her poetry is concerned with diaspora, memory, and water (rivers, creeks, lakes, etc.). Her work is in The Idaho Review, Ginger Bug Press, Sycamore Review, Apogee Journal, The Michigan Review, and Adi Magazine.