the dark is a sling

Psalm 71:20

The last time I saw you, Nafisah,

You said the dark is a sling.

I have watched you work, laugh,

In your small, disappearing voice,

You hid, it seems, behind your glasses.

You smiled, rare and quiet.

You said ‘the dark is a sling sending

You upwards from the depths of the earth.’

Listen, I have done this enough times, I know

Nothing quite like the wind under your wings,

The release from the paralyzing dread.

‘Maybe the sling is made of gratitude’, you said

‘That you are not dead,

Swallowed by your mind’s self-hating frenzy’

(Terrible way to die, I mumbled)

The sling is the analogue, I ventured

Of the inexorable slide into the dark

‘Oh’, you said, maybe, your eye level at me,

‘Excuse me.’

No, I should have said.

I have spent a hundred nights now, waiting,

For you to say ‘can I share your table’ again,

The dark is a sling, Nafisah,

I need to hear you say it again.