Homage — A Poem by Ahymon Ayoub Khan
In Ahymon Ayoub Khan's poem, the body is rendered as unfamiliar terrain that is unhabituated to itself in verses that treat it “as a site of grief.” The poet indicates that “the weight of grief is so palpable” that “the body offers no resistance” to it, and instead “submits”—as no other recourse is
Homage
Grief leaves my body swollen,
as if pulled out from a river afresh.
Four times its actual size
I say four, and not three
Because three is familiar.
I waddle to my bed
and pull the quilt
over this bag of clay,
to signal I am sleeping
when I am actually
paying homage
to grief’s overbearing presence.
