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.

By EZZA AMHED

Because I didn’t say Mashallah when she swapped her nose stud for a hoop and two days later I’m met by the bursting bulb of blood and pus which seals the fibrous innards of her nose cartilage on the outside sits the bulb pulsing expanding as if it’s breathing looks like a red evil eye ornament white pupil right at the center she has a nose growing out of her nose