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Rasha
by Sheikha A.

Beneath an occult moon, my mother shaped me from a raven’s feather. My skin was a rivulet of curses — scarred abyss of past life debts. Human forms were complicated to emulate — reptilian seals and symbols — systemic tides under no one’s control. So, I was continually formed on a series of moonless nights since a time that could no longer be read on the stars. And, my task was one — kiss of destiny — to stop failing at capturing him. I aligned magically that night, as if the black hole itself had purged the galaxies alive to when they shone a lustful vibrancy. The band of Milky Way criss-crossed dormant waves in a pattern meant for me to decode. From the sea’s goth of silence, his ship came sailing right into my stealth, perturbing the reflected stars imprinting for the both of us on velvet waters. He had landed earth once again 

siren’s breath

dabbed on a sailor 

blood-rose spell

I knew the sea better than the glimmer of every century’s garnet sunset; louder than the sparkle of loneliness, and deeper than darkness that followed me like I was theirs. But, the trickery of stars kept making me believe — spells of the seas — the beauty of our union; like sun and moon in their impossibility; metallic scent of hulled twilights; sea’s linings coated with bruised moonlight; defenceless horizon pooling in its own gash; like streaking a wrath both endless and beatific. My mother stitched a raven’s song to mine — seamen’s allure — this time he wouldn’t resist. She told me we would be atrophy to life, and a breath of blessing to death. His ship was in my reach; a glimpse of my face was all it would take. I knew he must come in search of me. The sky was betraying with a sliver of light. I had to grab him before the moon fought loose —

For eternal night to prevail, I would love him. 

And destroy him. 

faint crescent 

coughing up 

fluffs of raven 

Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose

More from author Sheikha A.:

Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!