Hasib Hourani

sealed tight for safety

i call my suburb the god district
         because there’s a church on every corner
         because the sunsets here are beautiful
         because of all the retirement homes

here’s where i saw god this week:
        on night-time concrete, while jumping, singing
        the wattlebird watching me write this
        my favourite cup shattering on the bathroom sink

i make dinner to Survivor
i get into bed with a nineteen year-old
scandinavian and his axe
he is building a log cabin from scratch
he is chipping at timber
he is knocking me asleep

i felt god in my almond magnum
that 7eleven is atop a hill
i can see the whole world
my parents tell me hello

                                          slurp
          there’s that final   suck
before my window         sip
     is fully wound            gulp
     and the citylink         gasp
    is a world away

          there’s the fact that
          the muffle starts
before the ute hits your bonnet
                     and then there’s ringing

i’d like to make a shrine
in my living room
but i can’t find an altar on gumtree
and my hands have been so shaky lately
and chicken wire makes me bleed

shards of shattered blue
like sledgehammer to screen
like riverbank in sweden
               in winter and
         a strong man’s foot

when the log cabin is finished
and the doors is closed
it       will       be        airtight
it       will       be        silent

my grandmother is with white cotton now
                     and with the earth
her body will nourish the dirt and that graveyard
                    will become a mountain
                    it will be so high
and the sunsets will be beautiful

    the muffle hits before the crash
and then there’s the bits on asphalt
the last time
i saw plastic shatter like that
it was a toy
i was twelve
i was in beirut
it was under a tyre

god saves my life every time i walk the creek and don’t fall in
         i would not drown
         i would be so stunned by the water
its yuckiness
that i would stay there forever

i found a frame
on facebook marketplace
         it’s silver
                            like my birthname
but lost its luster
like my birthname
the frame
is for my grandmother
for the portrait of her that i love

and i saw a photo of a heron
eating a rat
in central park
the water is brown
the rat’s body is perfect

mannequin
with arms and legs
click-locked in place
petrified like that and snapped
to stay that way
forever

Website:  hourani.glitch.me
Instagram:  @hellohourani
Twitter:   @hellohourani