Hush Poem by Leila Samarrai

You will go blind soon I think
Like the dead that squint
Near strong light
The victors at the end of all suns
Who brought forth the octopuses on the shores
Usually rising
With a finger on the lip
whispering.

The dead are hungry on flame
Joy is their power
By the vermilion of shame
Each new morning is provoked.
The sign of shame before the living
Is achieved by watching:
Roams the eye oblique onto the elbow
And the sharp taste of the living.

Tell me what I merely remember
And what haunts me in the dream to remember
Uncertain is the speech
The hush curses it.
You get the sun used to dieing
On the place where I dissolved
Speaking and hushing,
I hear only that which
Echoes
With barking silence.

Who extolled the dead
Who sang,
Ash or fire?
Do I hear a voice?
Or is it just the falling of the leaves?

I no longer hear you
Nor is my throat strained by vessels.
So have the dead decided
Young lovers
With tongue under the throat
Flung back
towards the twisted death of the living.