Fire

Here is a fire that threatens to consume all:
my house, my wife, my children,
my possessions, my goats, my wealth.

Even now the flames lick at my face
and I can see it coming—
the utter destruction of all that I love:

my neighbors, my village, the mosque,
and even more dear,
my body, my life, my identity.

All that I am, all that I have, nothing more than
ashes caught in dust devils
wobbling across wastes of sand.

And you, my Love, you stand by
not with water to douse this conflagration
but with a fan to urge sparks into disaster.

Najat knows you don’t mean any harm
—but utter and complete destruction of all that I know and love?
Oh, yes. That you most certainly intend.