Amalou Ouassou, Morocco

Have you ever been so close to a beating heart?

Last night, I wept on my father’s chest

for the first time since I learned

to speak. Have you ever said anything?

Beyond I will go to the market

tomorrow, and do you need

more coffee, and almonds are so bitter

this time of year? Last night

I lost balance on my father’s chest,

seen my tongue not tiptoe when it said

how the past is the space

we know how to sit in best, 

and to grow up is to be less dazzling

than dreams, how long 

it has been since I caught a ball 

How love pours from throats

so full it soaks my father’s face 

and trickles on my hair. How sorry shrieks 

out in the silence of the lonely.

How lovely it would be

to go to the market together 

and throw a ball back and forth

tomorrow, and the next, and the next

and put my ear to my father’s chest again.

Have you ever been so close

to a beating heart?

The rush

As I child, I wrote my name in sand

before the tide swept it off.

This is much of the same. A rush,

I am never my father’s son as much 

as in here, driving, under the tunnel;

Dad, your hand, over mine, 

on the wheel, against mine, merging

hot, melding. We are wordless.

I know a bowl of diced fruit is more

plea for forgiveness 

than your tongue can offer. 

I know I was born from you

and you were to protect your own.

But what I want most, is to let go 

of this passing

and own a body of my own.

Keep your eyes, your lungs,your kidneys. 

Your heart

is of more use to me in your chest.

I am never told I look like you 

more than when I carry your rage.

Let go of my hand.

One tug and the car swerves astray,

through the wall, implodes.

A man threw himself over his own

under a house ablaze.

You should know,

Flesh is no good shield against fire

when flesh turns to ash itself

This is it, a rush with the anger.

There was a shard of glass when i bit

the apple diced. This is it,

before the time sweeps it off.

Amalou is a moroccan poet and med student. He was a part of the between the lines program and the olive writers program which brings together writers from all across Morocco.