Here, Grass by Farah Ghafoor

October 31, 2022
Poem name: Here, Grass Poet name: Farah Ghafoor Poem: With a modified phrase from Ocean Vuong Dead, we will be perfect. Burying evolution with our two bodies: here are the last northern white rhinoceroses, and then, nothing. Don’t worry. After 55 million years, the body will hit us like a season. The grass will be fresh and dewed, the grass will be parched blond, but the grass will rise. It depends on the intimacy of the hand– how the bruise will hush when you see it coming, like a rain of vultures. It will crush the grass, but dig, and it will meet your square mouth, your swollen throat. When mine had seized, I had lain there, motionless, waiting for it to end. Panic is just a gust that intends to stop in the body, but flushes through to the other side. Panic is the grass of self-preservation, so naturally, we never want nightfall, the fatigue of the unfamiliar morning and its consumption. I live until the dark knocks and my body collapses towards the inevitable, towards the routine. By the daily shadow of the public we will be held until our memory dissolves, so don’t be afraid. After us, nothing will change. The horn will meet the skull, the calloused flesh the bones. The stone hoof will meet the grass, wherever it is, and we will be together. End of poem. Credits and bio: Copyright © Farah Ghafoor A 2022 Spring Seventh Wave resident, Farah Ghafoor’s poems are published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Prism International, Cream City Review, Ninth Letter, Hobart and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets and Best of the Net, and is taught at Iowa State University. Born in New York, she was raised in New Brunswick and Ontario, and studies accounting as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto.