3 Poems by Hawa Allan

Sounds Like Dawn

To grieve is to
grope inside
a black box,
and sense
no edge

until light bleeds
through, at first
dark red, then
lighter still, slowly

insinuating as if
through the thin,
sebaceous flesh
of an eyelid.

And now I can see
why mourning
sounds like dawn.

Like the slow creep
of watercolor soaking
through thick paper,
dawn also bleeds

red, then
yellow-pink,

a bruise
in the sky
on the cusp
of healing.

Shape of Me (with regards to Ed Sheeran)—Part One

I thought to be free
was to be an
amorphous thing—

no shape,
no boundary,
not the drifter
but the drift,

a wayward expanse,
an endless current

that stirs and swirls
dead leaves, lifts
plastic sacs into
air balloons

and lets them
pirouette
at the tips
of skyscrapers.

But to be
elemental
is not to live.

I am done
being the animator.

So see me now,
even through the
smoke of your delusions,

make me appear,
define me, and
I will emerge

clear through
these snaking wisps

Shape of Me (with regards to Ed Sheeran)—Part Two

The unknown is
an interminable
flat field.

I stand and gaze
at two wide strips
of land and sky,
already defeated.

So I crouch,
make my nest
in wild uncut grass,

flatten its blades
into the shape of me.

I dream of destinations,
of crumb trails,
of the crush
of forgotten footsteps,

of a beginning that
begs an end.