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Elegy for Queer Muslims Partying It Up in the Afterlife

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“Why be creative? Why think critically? Because it matters how I care for you.” 
— Alexis Pauline Gumbs 

Samandar Ghaus is a Pakistani-American poet, gardener, and community organizer currently working on an MFA at Indiana University. They are a VONA/Voices of Our Nation fellow, a Tin House workshop alum, and the recipient of the 2020 Vera Meyer Strube Poetry Prize. Their work can be found on poets.org, Poetry Daily, and poiesis, and they currently serve as Poetry Editor for Indiana Review.

Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Saami, what poems have you brought for us today?

 

ELEGY FOR QUEER MUSLIMS PARTYING IT UP IN THE AFTERLIFE

Imagine who we’ll meet

on the dance floor: that one girl

from Sunday school who you just knew

was a lesbian — score one

for the queers living it up

in Jannah, listen, it was intuition —

the youth organizer you met

at a community vigil and didn’t

even know was Muslim, auntie-Zareen-

from-the-masjid’s eldest theybie and, hold up,

auntie Zareen’s here, too (whaaattt!!), listen listen, the gays

and the girls are dancing to Abida Parveen and Lil Nas X,

Haneen tearing it up, Gina breaking

it down, our Sufi foremotherfathers

twisting to the beat — there’s no telling

(no need, no secret) who’ll hike up

their starchy shalwar to give us

a little bhangra in the sun-center

of the floor, party on in this most godly

hour, which is every hour in the universe

we live in, which is the life we deserve(d), most holy

flower-boi, tender bb, all our friends who pledged

themselves family at the janaza for family

when family died a white rose

a flag a moon and star a plane ticket

an expired phone card in our necks, remember

all our friends at the janaza for home,

when home was the ex we couldn’twouldn’t

go back to, when there was nowhere

to go back where you came from, after the janaza

for iraqafghanistanpakistansomaliasudan

yemeniranpalestineegyptnigeriaindiachinaburmasaudi,

at the janaza for Ahmed’s beloved friend,

at the janaza for Omar’s beloved friend,

at the janaza for Lama’s beloved friend,

at the janaza for our past selves swimming out

to sea as if to make ourselves metaphor,

wallahi we swore we’d be the ocean touching

all those (places, people) we feared we’d never belong

to again, good lord remember the ache,

when the heart couldn’t make it past customs

doomed to extra security screenings

in our homeless itineraries, ya rabb

there’s only so long we could linger

in the airports of our lives, dodging

all the cops in immigration hell, inna lillahi,

(after)life comes for us all —

and yallah! now the ache in our knees

as we drop it down low to each other’s fearless

ululations, our bravery sleeping

in the self-care room while the beat goes

on and we pitch ourselves through the dark,

careening bodies under the lote tree,

constellating the collective groove

of the highest gay heaven, listen,

after life is more life, and it’s the life,

we’re living it up[biatch]!, rebirthed in our twirling

wrists and hundred-mile-an-hour hips

shaking like poplar leaves in a Black Sea breeze —

oh, home is a shadow shimmying

between our bodies in the Jannat-al-dancefloor,

imagine it now, how when we die,

we’ll show up to greet each other at the ga(y)tes

of eternity dressed in sequins and keffiyehs,

starshining solidarity free like the best queer clubs

on earth, while the rest of the world —

discoball memory on which we scatter our light —

spins below, looking up at us

to find their way.

 

You've been listening to the poetry of Samandar Ghaus on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.

Disco ball

(Cifer88, pixabay)

“Why be creative? Why think critically? Because it matters how I care for you.” 
— Alexis Pauline Gumbs 

Samandar Ghaus is a Pakistani-American poet, gardener, and community organizer currently working on an MFA at Indiana University. They are a VONA/Voices of Our Nation fellow, a Tin House workshop alum, and the recipient of the 2020 Vera Meyer Strube Poetry Prize. Their work can be found on poets.org, Poetry Daily, and poiesis, and they currently serve as Poetry Editor for Indiana Review.

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