number four

            everything we have made
            halved in its own colloquial 
                                    guardianship 
            the drained lake 
            the felled castle 
            the timbre of a lone voice 
            not ever disturbed 
            the fist of new snow on its 
            way to melting 
            well-coagulating blood type 
                                                            O 
                                    all fallen sutures felled for 
                                    unbearable reasons 
                                    unsystematic in its approach 
                                    steadfast in its sediment 
                                                to reach the kingdom before 
                                                the only gate clenched— iron 
                                                on iron and final 
                                                febrile in its will to be ocean 
                                                in its will to only want ocean 
                                                to say black but mean ocean 

                        the embryo rests in a cavity, cleaned 
                        and called now womb 
                        to go there is easy 
                        you have been my want 
                        all desire fostered among us 
                        the supplier passes the iodine 
                        through me 
                        clears the canal for anything 

every recoil is my own absent 
want— mine and not to be mine 
I am a thimble of O blood cells 
bluffing each time 
to let other objects through me 
it is possible for the tender wish to become a bone 
to beckon to tend the animal and temper it 

                        if it were my own arid island I 
                        would know the word for it 
                        would call it an island that 
                        would have me 
                                    though the room gives way to gray 
                                    space like the wish for 
                                    any promise 
                                    prim and ill-used 
                        storage locker of 
                        unpaid bills and 
                        auctioned objects 

                                                if I were my own island 
                                                I would succumb to its 
                                                measure 
                                                            it lurches— how granular 
                                                                        its weighted scale 
                                                becomes finality 

any blastocyst can live 
in deference then die 
extend any glib shadow 
stretch the distance then 
go be all the animated future 
then 

any body can read 
the threadbare clock 
its second hand proclamation 
succumbs to all twelve hours 

any want rings the circle 
bears down with its one mouth 
makes for want inside better want 
made subterfuge airtight container 
it cannot lean less 
it hangs in the plaza 
crescendo. blue. O. 

Copyright © 2024 by Asiya Wadud. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 17, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“This poem is one in a series of poems in which a fleeting fever dream of a family finally becomes real. This poem was written over the course of some days or weeks, and it was a chance to relive the fever dream again and again.”
—Asiya Wadud