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Dear Preacher

A Poem

By Shereen AkhtarPublished 3 years ago 1 min read
"Ashkenazi Synagogue of Istanbul" by Nikos Niotis is licensed with CC BY-NC 2.0.

Dear Preacher: Although you met me in a carboniferous state

when grass was still purple, and not yet blanched by sugars from the sun,

I remember you chinking red wine glasses, the stems as giant as redwoods,

at my bedside and I have spent every evening since

then, toasting your life

that could have been mine to save --- :

in the sense of dolphins that return a red and bruised man to shore.

***

Dear Preacher: I wrote you poems after you left, sickly and transparent,

and emailed them to you while you were at service, healing the needy,

understanding nothing of how your attention would

also travel ---- back to your books and your people

who speak also to me, but in different tones. Blue as lapels, blonde

as studio models with only your lens as their desire. Your red tapes ---:

your green room, a vestibule where only the cleanly baptised

may enter to be deciphered.

***

Dear Preacher: There are nights I would sleep nestled as my own embryo,

away from you, while you read portions of sacred texts and highlighted them

until the early hours ---: and if I

asked you a question you would bend over to my dreams

chisel open my skull and lace your answer in sutures.

Neither of us know truly how to tread carefully when

life is holy with movement.

***

Dear Preacher: Let the record show I invented you

and our embarrassing grey love story, except for the photographs

and letters

and the awkward meeting a year later at a restaurant

when you pretended that nothing ever had been.

When you are gone, I hear and carry the magnitude

of our creation ---: your hot claret voice in my purple heart never stops.

love poems

About the Creator

Shereen Akhtar

Shereen is a writer and poet based in London. She has had work published in Ambit Magazine, Wasafiri, The Masters Review, Magma and Palette Poetry amongst others. She received a London Writers Award. Her debut collection is out next year.

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    Shereen AkhtarWritten by Shereen Akhtar

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