Before Autumn

Zain Rishi

There are so many things I want
to tell you. Like how he loves me

with those same words that leapt
this temporal gulf, a country ago,

where you and Abbu spoke plainly
below night's veil. Or how the first

time I drank, I thought of Muhammad
drinking his cat's water. And I want

to drink the daylight before it goes,
before autumn sets us bare. Bare

as those hands threaded into yours
below the table, a forbidden

language your amma taught you
by omission. But what's missing

isn't the light, nor the leaves, it's
how I want to say it. That I want

to be as plain to you as a season.
That I want to tell you everything

before it changes.

Zain Rishi was Guest Editor of Gutter Issue #33. His debut collection, Noon, in which this poem appears, is published by The Emma Press.