"Unkept" by Noor Hindi

Noor Hindi (she/her/hers) is a Palestinian-American poet and reporter. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Winter Tangerine, and Cosmonauts Avenue. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Literary Hub, and Adroit Journal. Hindi is the Senior Reporter for The Devil Strip Magazine. Visit her website at noorhindi.com.

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​Unkept
 
 
I’ve been saying goodbye to everything.
The artichokes on my kitchen counter — tiny hearts quivering
under a knife, my grandmother’s aging knees — persistent
and achy, the way my mother sometimes looks
at the sky — all glimmer and home. In dreams,
my car drives backwards, I run too slow, I am sitting atop
a streetlight, smashing a bulb between my teeth.
I’ve been exercising my body away. Here,
take this machine called my sadness. Toss it
in a lullaby, it needs tenderness, spring, maybe
a little hymn to hum it to sleep. Zina’s favorite flower
was sunflowers. They’ve been following me
around everywhere I go. A decade’s past. My best friend
and I are breaking up, but I’ve been grieving
for so long my eyes become flutes. I wish to ask
my grandfather what happens after we die,
but everything I say sounds like a quiver.
It’s so hard being a person. I promised Zina she’d live
forever. She gave me the sun instead.