Ghazal I
The raven ringlet, wafting black against your shining face,
is smoke from incense, curling dark across the fireplace.
A hundred fractures rack my hand: a hundred vows you break.
The only cure will be to bind this hand in your embrace.
Your freckle? Fruit forbidden in the Eden of your face.
Your eyes? Two idols tempting from your brow where faithful pray.
Last night your hair caressed my head, your ringlet like a wraith,
and still my head is reeling from your moonflower bouquet.
Your lips have never offered me a promise in good faith.
All told, you are a flower, though unscented, lacking grace.
My Love, let’s wear this new ghazal of stanzas interlaced.
Your stature bears aloft the majesty of Nali’s phrase.
Ghazal II
The flood of your departure tore away my inmost cornerstone.
The burden of my thoughts of you have bent me low like slouching smoke.
Your glance has pierced my heart, an arrow from your eyebrows’ bow.
The tatters of my heart cascade in tearful overflow.
My eyes and heart are foes. I know not which to favor, which oppose,
so as to crucify the culprit, left to weep alone.
When you are gone, O Light of mine, my eyes forget their glow,
so let me sift your doorway’s dust to salve my eyes as kohl.
Your lashes’ arrows lash my heart, a tattered mesh of holes.
That was their role. With heart-stained floods, my own eyes overflowed.
By yearning for your sword-shaped brows, my heart was cleft and broached—
my soul, I know not from which breach, this going to and fro.
Whoever sees my Love will be enthralled and swear an oath:
“By God, this is an angel’s face, surpassing all below!”
If only my Beloved Flower and I could court alone,
and other suitors be as flies, to swat away in droves.
Sunflower Nali prays toward your face’s sun, head low
and sallow, ready at your gate to serve with hand and soul.