Ghazal of the Half  

Singing virtues, she swings to the east, claims half,
accepts what’s given, smiles, nods, names half.

What stone lies unturned in this bluest of graves?
Where love’s darkest lancet intrudes, inflames half.

The beauty of intercession and the divided become
one. Pushing them into two piles, she blames half.

Incomplete, I ride the lost memory’s pale vein,
as the motion of capture, of trickling, maims half.

You read the history of driftwood in its scars.
“Never whole. Always,” she exclaims, “half.”

My other name is a hill in a windstorm of sleep.
Forever apart and uneven, just the surname’s half.

“Ghazal of the Half” first appeared in Manzano Mountain Review in November, 2018. Many thanks to editors Justin Bendell and Kristian Macaron for taking this piece.