POETRY

By Moham­mad Razai

Ren­dezvous (I)

Last night in my dream you smiled in a way that meant more than friendship,
so I am check­ing if that’s what you mean. We fre­quent that lamp-lit
cobbled street, slalom­ing in some misty labyrinth so hazy I’m waiting for
a foghorn to alert us to danger. Fingers laced togeth­er, we walk and walk to a
place we don’t yet know though I sound cock­sure where we’re headed. You leap in
some kind of pirou­ette and I catch before you slip, feel the warmth of your breath
in my mouth, hoping against hope that this is not a dream again. And what if
you stopped coming here, what would I do then?

Ren­dezvous (II)

Do you remem­ber that after­noon in Sidney Street? The home­less man
flour­ish­ing a copy of the Big Issue: “Don’t be shy, give it a try,” he said
in his soft north­ern sing-song. I reached into my pocket and felt the
cold surface of a tar­nished penny. It was snowing when we got back, standing
at the college porch galled by the porter’s men­ac­ing eyes—you stomped down
the cor­ri­dor to dis­lodge the slush. There wasn’t enough snow to build a full-grown snowman, which like my pubes­cent beard came to nothing in your gloved
hands. We looked at each other dis­ap­point­ed as if it was our fault.

Ren­dezvous (III)

We sat for dinner in those candle-lit halls as if a great dis­cov­ery was about
to be made. The hand of history hovered with a pop­si­cle that attracted
us like rav­en­ous flies. I felt much wiser then, as I envei­gled my antennae
into your soul looking for any trace of Dante’s Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar 
perdona. Is there really such a law some­where that the one who smites shall be
smitten too? Besot­ted, I desired to be a shadow, the shadow of the candelabra
that fell on your face as the punch-drunk night stag­gered into the dis­tance. I
was the tipsier as I fixed the lace of your gown admir­ing its tai­lored frill.

Ren­dezvous (IV)

I wielded the scalpel to dissect the placid life­less bodies as the stench of
formalde­hyde hung heavy in the air. The more I felt detached from
those muti­lat­ed corpses the more I felt lost in your smile, study­ing its
car­tog­ra­phy like an avid explor­er. The supe­ri­or and pos­te­ri­or draw of your
zygo­mati­cus major pulling so art­ful­ly the orbic­u­laris oris in its upturned grace.
I would tear up in some ecstasy of my own mar­veling at your latinized muscles,
the seventh nerve—how they con­spired to struc­ture your smile to tug at the
strings of my heart, the strings I couldn’t find in any anatomy textbook.

Ren­dezvous (V)

I was mute as I fol­lowed you to the station, noting the random numbers
that appeared on the side of the train. I wished for that de rigueur waving
from inside the car­riage, but you didn’t know I was there. I tried to raise
my tremu­lous hand but wasn’t sure whether you would wave back if you did
see me, so my hand made a fist instead. As I imag­ined the chug chug of the
train leaving, I couldn’t see any­thing in the twi­light haze. I wrote your name
in the con­den­sa­tion on the bus window with a ques­tion mark, as if it had
been a great mystery why you left and why you would never come back.

Notes:
Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona from Dante’s Inferno: Love, which
spares no one who’s loved from loving

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 18.

Photo by Lucas Larsson.