My own attempt at a ghazal. I hadn't researched it quite thoroughly enough, so I suspect this is actually rather stricter than it needs to be. The person who set the challenge to write a ghazal insisted that it include the theme of unrequited love, hence the title.
when I say unrequited I mean I love an empty wound
by the kitchen window a butterfly folds back into itself, a retreat
back into the hollow of the dry
cocoon, a
barren but easy retreat.
last summer a
calf fed too long and hard at its
mother’s teat,
and later
we tracked the blood into the carpet in our hurried retreat.
in the mirror I examine the spreading curves of my newborn
crow’s feet;
the creams and special soaps do nothing to aid their retreat.
there are
orchids on the bureau:
plastic flowers don’t smell so sweet,
but they are all that’s left after summer’s retreat.
for supper I clink the
pots and pans: I have forgotten to buy
meat.
he compares the table to my belly,
hungry and bare. I sound the retreat.
on the patio there are
sultry remains of the nights when
we drink whisky neat,
and I roll it in my mouth, loathe to swallow it down and feel hope retreat
when I wake into the embrace of a tightly coiled early morning, I cheat
sleep and
dig my hands into my womb, or rather the
gash of a barren retreat.