After Ghada Amer

 

hall of mirrors
recursive

profile
knots her

leaks onto canvas
passionate

calligraphy
stitching a face

embroidered
        woman

thread silhouettes
        filamented women

recursive
guise

a face in rayon
a face in silk

in violet
a face

outlined in blue
sketching

in black
      eight

women
light in loose

hair
threaded line

in tumbling hair
stitched

and subtle
        women

entangled
        hands grip

hips breasts
threaded women

threaded
bodies bared hips

bare        fingers
white

light of canvas
            embrace

a blue and violet
contour

black-threaded women
filamented

bodies 
one

curved hip
passionate drift

thigh
loosed in fine thread

floss
        tracery        

gendering
gaze :: lost

shroud            defiant

contour of sex

After Shazia Sikander

I’ll keep your shirt white,
Will wash and keep it unwrinkled.
If you come through my door,
I’ll keep you as my guest.

Bayati, Azebaijani
contemporary oral song

 

myrtle tangles apricot, interleaves lotus, pomegranate. green assumes a guise of black, propagates shadow. venus and devi, houri with spiraling horns. layered narratives form a perpetual shade. shower of confetti, of rose petals or light.  “mohammed’s blood”. swords flower out of musk-scented earth,  A-10’s like peonies. a stair thunders into a vanished sky, eroding sight, any heart will do. perilous embrace. shadow silhouettes a regime of repetition, the garden vanishes, even heaven retreats. machinery of violence takes root in the camouflage of dusk

champagne flute

flower

      sideshow

*
an entire painstaking review

*

an
other

sex

-ed wedding cake

*
the new pastoral

*

corsage

phantasmal
bride

rake

*
discretion was advised

*

glistening
reptile

folded-paper

caress

 

*
the precise moment of pleasure

*

sex’s absurd

confection

       gate

       :: “beloved”

*
confession of the flesh