Samiah Haque
after Simone Weil
In a dream I saw executioners
entering your forest.
In Jeddah,
in another lifetime,
I knew an executioner.
He spent a childhood
polishing his father's sword.
This work is an inheritance.
Vein to vein, not learned
in a year or two.
He was taught
to raise his sword slowly,
to wait for a pardon to arrive.
In a dream, when you left,
I couldn't do a thing but wait
in empty fields.
And fast, it seems,
for years.