27 July 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 2

Ghazal for a Comfort

Wrinkled new red body, startling in the empty air, once blanketed

by mother flesh, now swaddled tight in an imitating blanket.


Sometimes the hierarchy works, or looks to: On the news,

to hear the farmer, the prince sits on the blanket.


Just a pilled shred left, it was then the cloth of solace, the frayed

satin edge woven rhythmically by small fingers, the blankie.


All goods in one bag, a street-stumbling body ravaged by

no water no home, but some dignity in a cloaking blanket.


Quilted from castoff scraps, embroidered with feminist furor,

beaded clits, blood in yarn, laid on a dorm bed—outrage in a blanket.


Shiny and silver, a future anodyne? For the emergency

that may never come, tucked in a car door, the space blanket.


The wife of the Shearman knows: he clips the cloth

smooth, and against her skin, soothingly, he lays the blanket.

About the author:

Amy O'Hair has poems forthcoming in cold-drill, CRATE, and Caketrain. Reading the work of Pakistani poet Faiz was her introduction to the ghazal.

For further reading:

Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 7, No. 2, where "Ghazal for a Comfort" ran on July 27, 2007. List other work with these same labels: poetry, ghazal.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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