Seeds of Utopia

By Ahmed Latif

As playful as the morning, witty and wistful,
I saw your ghost twirling in the day moon’s light.
I lazily conjured a cozy little dream for us two.
I plucked my harp to songs of Leningrad in the spring.
Your ghost and my spirit danced on the terrace.
We spiralled and spun
Like concentric circles drunk on straight lines.
There is nothing to regret,
The pain will leave such beautiful scars.

You with arch eyes instigated an insurrection
Purely for entertainment purposes.
I brought you down to the shipyard in the dead of night
Wordlessly we constructed a new ship, masts and all.
No anchors, no maps, and no flags.
With an angel holding her hands out for a figurehead.
You put something in the angel’s hands
Then ran into the sea
Before I set out to search for you in our ship
I looked in the angel’s hands:
There was a satchel full of seeds.