What If Maybe

By Salma Hussain

What if maybe
we are only here to pluck
every
single
 
luscious sun-kissed
full-flavoured
 
r           a
 
s                       p
 
b                                  e                                  r                                   r y
 
off its torus
 
and plop
 
p          l           o          p          p          i           t           y
 
plop
 
into our
 
luscious
sun-kissed
full lips
 
every single day of every single summer we are here?

What I am asking is what if maybe we are only here

to hunger for that which we love
our tongues tingling tart with want
under sun-dappled skies

---

The Light on the Porch Does Not Flicker

by Salma Hussain

Baji

I turned the porchlight on for you

the road left behind you
is always there to return to
 
when the morning feels dark
and
mocking
and
cruel
 
know that the porchlight is on for you

Baji
there are dragons between us
raging tsunamis too
ice pellets shower from the sky
but that porchlight
 
it was lit in the deepest part of my heart
​and that light stays on for you

---

The Value of Zero

By Salma Hussain

math was not math until
the Greeks saw the value in how the Arabs used zero
 
they needed zero
for calculating prayer times
for weighing za’ka:t dues
for shirking interest
 
but also
they were counting stars
mapping patterns in the light beyond their grasp
 
an inquiry they called
ilm-el-Falak
the science of Falak
Like me, they, too, were
counting
praying
pining
 

to find the logic

​                              behind the devastating magic

of formation

---

Three Cardinals

By Salma Hussain

I

It is the morning of the follow-up
the MRI is going to bewitch us with a tale – 
maybe the tumor is blooming
 
its tendrils have been spreading
seeking
metastasizing
in its yearning for
glucose oxygen cortisol
 
Or maybe
there’s another story
the one that science has yet to elucidate
 
that there’s been a radical remission
a joyous wilting
an unexplainable miracle
 
they will call us right away if there’s bad news
and if they don’t call right away, then silence = good news
I know how this part of the story goes
the part I don’t understand is what happens tomorrow

One breath then the next and the next

In the waiting room
three red cardinals
come perch on the sill
 
At this time of the year
this incident is highly unusual
it is mating season
and they should be in pairs
this event is against the odds
a deviation
an anomaly
an extreme value in a data set
 
The birds peck and poke in their hunger
their beaks

searching
yearning
fumbling
 
Is it not both thrilling and terrifying
that
even among the outliers
the dance for a morsel for joy is ubiquitous and relentless

II

From watching the three cardinals outside my window
 
I now know
that
whichever tale the MRI spins tomorrow

three proofs are irrefutably true – 

١
 
that if living is to be done, it’s
mountain by mountain
and sometimes
​step by step
and that there are moments that are breath by breath too
 
٢
 
That if there’s a different, more difficult story written by the stars for me
then
then
endings are beginnings too
 
٣
 
That bodies may leave and return to that Which they belong
​but that somewhere someone on the ground will have left the porchlight on for us

---

Salma Hussain (she/her) is a former lawyer who now writes fiction for children and adults. Her short stories and poems have appeared in filling Station, Line, Other Voices, The Humber Literary Review, Fiddlehead, and in the chapbook anthology, Homebound: Muslim Women Poetry Collection (Outburst Press). Her novel for kids and kids-at-heart, THE SECRET DIARY OF MONA HASAN was published by Penguin Random House in May 2022.