For Alia


The days scurried past
the time when time was with us,
gifted the lift of your being here,
my child at arm’s length and closer, closer,
close as the breadth of a fingernail.

And what stays most true, indelible
from the moments we shared
on a holiday halved with your family,
was bedtime, that hymn, that homily.

Your eyes would fix their falling paths onto
mine, on the cusp of corniced sleep,
and you spoke, from the depths of your deep
gobbledygook, to your father,
for whose love there is nothing called lateness,

the slink of night forever lived and felt
like a golden beginning – as though
the strictures of time could only melt
for one as treasured and riveted as you.
 

Omar Sabbagh is a widely published poet, writer and critic. Two of his latest books are, Y KNOTS: Short Fictions (Liquorice Fish Books, 2023) and Night Settles Upon the City (Daraja Press, 2024). He teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in Beirut, Lebanon.