Kacper Niburski is a medical student in the Class of 2021 at McGill University. He is also the CMAJ student humanities blog editor. Follow his writing instagram: @_kenkan.

 

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as if you’ve already known

that it must be i

quiet i looking i

holding the heavy love

for us both

 

these giant holes of light

these hands wrecked with the small

and the insects that sit on bony branches

like lesser gods dissolving in the leaves

that too know

how to pray

or kill a man

 

my brother is tickling my feet

my sister is wanting to wrestle us both

air laughs between then and then in the sweet pardon

of excuse me child

have you heard what rumi said

about this

let the beauty we love be what we do

 

are you done

is this night

where i dream in the slop of your inhale

with persian on my tongue

the split fruit of books on the carpet

where i am trying to swear more often

because of that damned poet reminding

each day is a tinier day

each body is becoming less of a body

by being with others

 

on a ripped page is an entire life

in a word there the worried universe

 

the scalps understand

the scallops even more so

you lick your fingers with childhood

meat full of meat

like my grandmother who taught her

earth brown cat

a persian i think

to tickle

to hold

to love the unknown

universally