Identity 

By Barbara Flaherty 

I became a slave at His portal; then, duality disappeared; I

was absorbed in Him. 

       - Khwaja Abdullah Ansari 

Love opened the bars of my cell, 

silenced every counterfeit voice. 

I begged to be cracked open, pleaded to be a poured out jar, 

a space remembering only Him. 

Love broke me, made my every voice 

a hollow ring, a thing uninhabited. 

Love prowls in the hidden haunts. 

His voice is not tame, wolf howl, 

coyote, tiger roar, jaguar.

When love came it penetrated 

the cave of my will, the vulva 

of my heart, the secret parts. 

One of us must die, it said. 

Love kissed my face, my whole life’s 

basket unraveled in the wind.

By Barbara Flaherty, in A Kaleidoscope of Stories: Muslim Voices in Contemporary Poetry (Lote Tree Press, 2020)  www.lotetreepress.com