Aqua Regia

And all I see now
is my face through a curtain:
a pebbled pock-marked past,
its burning by-lanes,

and drop by drop,
like a leaking sewer,
his love, pungent,
corrosive, windblown.

And all I’ll see now
is my unborn child
learning the alphabet
and its vitriolic histories:

H for He, H for Hate,
H for Hijab, H for HCl,
and then the silent H –
H for Honour.

And if I could see now,
I’d tell you a love story –
of a genie in a bottle
of aqua regia, and

a kingdom where men
love with acid blisters
and write love’s
sour hagiography.

***