By Reyzl Grace
—for E. R. Shaffer
When a man reproaches me that I have been
so long away from the mosque, he will cite the narration
of ’Abd al-Rahman bin Shamasa, that the Prophet ﷺ says:
“The one who learned archery and then gave it up
is not from us, but has been ungrateful for a blessing.”
I learned to shoot the way I learned to pray—
by myself, with patience, perseverance, and books
in fine Arabic. Patience is like perseverance,
as Arabic is like Hebrew, as shooting is like
prayer, as one lip lays on another.
One book was my favourite—a medieval treatise
whose author told me I must stand as though “the top
of [my] head were suspended on a string from heaven.”
My spine curved like the bow itself, my shoulders
opened like an angel’s wings, and for the first time,
this barren flesh carried pride as a woman
might carry a child. Thus I lie with you,
the muscles of my back stringing the length of my soul
when your tongue touches my breast like starlight at the end
of the fast, like the pull of ripe date on finger.
A man who could not draw me so, and who envies me
your hand, will say there is something unwomanly
in the way I am drawn—will say I have left the path
of those God favours, and number me instead
among those who have gone astray. Let him speak,
and I will cite the narration of Salama, how the Prophet
passed by a team of archers and praised their shooting
in the tradition of their father, Ishmael—declared himself
on their side. At this, the opposing team ceased
to shoot, and the Prophet ﷺ asked them what was wrong.
There was no use, they told him (as so many men
have told me) in drawing a bow if Allah’s
Apostle ﷺ was against them. But the Prophet ﷺ turned, and his eyes
that saw angels marked such strings as lifted each of them,
and he cried, “Draw, and shoot! For I am with all of you.”
Reyzl Grace is a Pushcart-nominated poet/librarian with work in Room, Rust & Moth, So to Speak, and elsewhere, as well as a poetry editor for Psaltery & Lyre. Originally from Cascadia, she now lives in Minneapolis with her novelist girlfriend, arguing over which of them is the better writer. (It’s her girlfriend.) You can find more of her at reyzlgrace.com and on Twitter/Bluesky @reyzlgrace.
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