For The Beloved Witness Poem by Shivangi Mariam

when i think of your promise
of meeting me at the end of the world
blood curdles in my mouth
and my tongue keeps going back
to your memory like your tongue
kept going back to your missing tooth.
as i would watch your face and watch
your moles collapse into a constellation
i would think of the prophecy the missing (tooth) carried.
it always reminded me of the first time we met:
under the rustling leaves of the mulberry tree, there
where darkness would copulate noisily
and abandon her children in your mouth
and i would pull your children and rinse their bodies with the morning light.
you would laugh and watch me as i
scrubbed with sun their dark bodies.
'if there is a God, he is under a stone grinding the night.'
as i would watch your face and watch
your lips part into a smile
i would think of the prophecy the missing (tooth) carried.
it is what remains of the last time we met:
over the blue horse of my dreams
our children had dried up in the summer
like raisins and in your country children
had become the leaves of our first meeting
rolling and lurching, seeking their childhood.
martyr after martyr, the children fell like mulberries
and coloured your missing tooth and my nights with their blood.
it is their blood in my mouth that curdles
and you say that it is not the end of the world yet.