LIFE Poem: The Shades of the Soul, by Hasib Iftekhar

In owned reverie, how the spirit moves …
How it bodes, to what it knows,
How she thinks on her feet without even moving –
through the sweetgrass over my door to enable me somehow.

Bones beneath the flesh, framing this body, caging my soul,
Between open windows.

How the heart-shaped leaf groove bites my coffee table,
Decorative, at each quaff, like a map of life.

Cedar forests barricade me against bad juju, voodoo hags, the enticing tongues,
Secures me a spot, one tiny dot, nowhere inside the teak-tree grove,
Counters the approaching death,
How it hews my enmities, and slow ravaging distractions.

Dissipated smokes in my Yrgacheffe distil my thoughts
Crouch me low, I hear a prayer moan slow.
Rain on skin, beats the chivalry I fought

I duck myself, mawkish, and rest my feet.
In the corner, at an end to sauntering, indeed.
Deboned of flesh, stepped outside the shadow
An after-hours damp waft off the mercado

How it brings to my soul a clarity long sought.