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Solace

by Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad



The hum of two verses, in Arabic, broke
from a dream when I opened my eyes
 
I only knew scriptures in English
until that morning when I remembered
 
the story of the Messenger
hauled by an anchor of sorrow,
 
a suffering that simmered
in his expulsion from tribesmen
 
and normalcy. A rope, tied and twisted,
perched on the orphan’s back.
 
On the path of prophecy, a divinity
revealed, grief still circled him,
 
but did I not expand your breast,
He asked, removed you from burden,
 
raised you in rank,
He wrote in His letter called Solace
 
For indeed, with hardship will be ease
Indeed, with hardship will be ease
 
because God knew even His favorite
needed persuasion, repeated
 
the affection of a tireless counselor.
Those lines now, fourteen hundred years
 
later, wafting dawn-soaked air
before I knew my own hardship,
 
the enemy shroud, opaque curtains
hung in folds around each organ,
 
and what about my breast, never
even selected, how far can it expand
 
before it bursts like a balloon
spilling the nothing inside of it. 

​




​I was born and raised in New York. My poetry has appeared in The Missing Slate, Passages North, HEArt Journal Online, Chiron Review, and is forthcoming in Natural Bridge and Pinch Journal. I currently live in New York and practice matrimonial law.
Photo used under Creative Commons from yugenro
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