Blue Hijab
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What becomes of a girl in blue hues? Through a field green where boulders
are serrated ready to tumble tear earth exposing the clay
of a civilization forced under.
This is where we feed. Where sheep sully grass.
Where the shepherd sleeps until his flock is fat.
The girl gathers vegetables wild parsley. At the market she is accosted by a boy
dazzled by her blue hijab. How each thread extends light.
That same light crushing over his teeth in a mouth cascading.
A cement truck churns on her road home. This is her mind attempting
something it hasn’t. Thoughts more like wire tangles tricks in knots traps
what shouldn’t be trapped loose paper plastic this is how we are clogged.
We are weighed distracted rendered without progress. [End Page 234]
How the telephone poles look more like something left from a visit
undocumented. A phenomenon unspoken of if only to maintain credibility.
Here internal lives are never exposed. Pretending is not optional not here where
we build close ourselves in stone. The onions make her cry as a caterpillar
crosses the counter of chipped tile. What becomes of a girl in blue hues?
Her hijab on the floor the potatoes in the sink soaking the dirt
disconnecting assembling itself into something with order a sea floor shifting. [End Page 235]
Myronn Hardy is author of three collections of poems: Approaching the Center, The Headless Saints, and Catastrophic Bliss, winner of the Griot-Stadler Prize for Poetry. He divides his time between Morocco and New York City.
