LOVE INSTALLS — LIMITATIONS
BY HAJJAR BABAN
my hand on the outline of each
country I can’t reach — in dreams,
on a plane too close to someone,
if I hug my father, with new books
to learn all 3 dialects , as a child, or old
enough to know better, through
the worth of ache, palming the oceans,
with oil burning through the walls,
its language, if I fall in love
with someone from there if I meet
the parents, without a grand family
tree, because of the time it took historians
to find a name for [ ] even if
I told God, I cried every day
of Ramadan last year, because I can’t
tell the difference between lion (share) and
milk (sheer) because instead of separate,
I say alone a full lack, never given precise
measures — the only uncertainty
a map could agree with.
