"You Stepped Out of Trouble" by Tricia Louvar
"Icebox" by Noorulain Noor
My mother, wherever she lives now,
must always be by a window, looking out, waiting,
for the quartet of prayers I say for her each day
as I look, too, at shapes on my prayer mat--
the roundness of juniper berries, the gold brocade border,
the loops and whorls that morph into eyes and lips and faces
dispersed at my feet.
My limbs cradle a perpetual chill
since I pulled her out of the icebox,
placed a palm over her forehead,
and gulped the January air, heavy
with the scent of sandalwood and rain and the nip of winter,
and yet, somehow, warmer than her.
Still, she was herself --
those eyes with the scant lashes, her eyes,
those lips blooming blue at the corners, her lips,
and so I leaned the tip of my nose against her temple
and whispered, “Come back.”
On the bare marble slab in the funeral home,
I poured a cask of water over her --
its rivulets pooled around her shoulders,
but the shiver in my arms did not transcend to her spine.
Her stillness did not acknowledge or deny
the wildness around us -- of tongues rolling in many mouths
uttering hard grains of worship, dead leaves and the wind
in a waltz, a murder of crows cawing up a ruckus
in the nearby peepul,
and just beyond the silence between us,
the cacophony of grief.
Maybe she turned away then, rising to a colder place yet,
far from the bier and that icebox,
from the lull of the day and the din of life.
Maybe she morphed from fragments to whole to fragments again,
like waves breaking ashore and coalescing, receding, swelling, running, returning,
the tide – cold and constant – coming back, always, coming back.
must always be by a window, looking out, waiting,
for the quartet of prayers I say for her each day
as I look, too, at shapes on my prayer mat--
the roundness of juniper berries, the gold brocade border,
the loops and whorls that morph into eyes and lips and faces
dispersed at my feet.
My limbs cradle a perpetual chill
since I pulled her out of the icebox,
placed a palm over her forehead,
and gulped the January air, heavy
with the scent of sandalwood and rain and the nip of winter,
and yet, somehow, warmer than her.
Still, she was herself --
those eyes with the scant lashes, her eyes,
those lips blooming blue at the corners, her lips,
and so I leaned the tip of my nose against her temple
and whispered, “Come back.”
On the bare marble slab in the funeral home,
I poured a cask of water over her --
its rivulets pooled around her shoulders,
but the shiver in my arms did not transcend to her spine.
Her stillness did not acknowledge or deny
the wildness around us -- of tongues rolling in many mouths
uttering hard grains of worship, dead leaves and the wind
in a waltz, a murder of crows cawing up a ruckus
in the nearby peepul,
and just beyond the silence between us,
the cacophony of grief.
Maybe she turned away then, rising to a colder place yet,
far from the bier and that icebox,
from the lull of the day and the din of life.
Maybe she morphed from fragments to whole to fragments again,
like waves breaking ashore and coalescing, receding, swelling, running, returning,
the tide – cold and constant – coming back, always, coming back.
Noorulain Noor is a member of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and a two time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry has appeared in Spillway, Sugar Mule, Santa Clara Review, Muzzle and other journals. Raised in Lahore, Pakistan, Noorulain now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry explores themes of identity, multiculturalism, and the immigrant experience.
Tricia Louvar lives in the Pacific Northwest and studied journalism, poetry, aesthetics, and documentary photography in college and beyond. She works in publishing as a visual artist and writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Brevity, Orion Online, Zyzzyva, and more. tricialouvar.com
Artist Statement: At a Saturday kaffeeklatsch, after splitting a piece of banana bread, I am the one nibbling pieces of its raw sugar left behind on the plate. Such an instantsummarizes my artistic impulses of focusing on the leftovers and the overlooked. I investigate the human condition and its relationship to impermanence with digital and analog tools.
Artist Statement: At a Saturday kaffeeklatsch, after splitting a piece of banana bread, I am the one nibbling pieces of its raw sugar left behind on the plate. Such an instantsummarizes my artistic impulses of focusing on the leftovers and the overlooked. I investigate the human condition and its relationship to impermanence with digital and analog tools.
