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Lighthouse

Noor Haddad

Lyric poem · Hope

All night it says the same word to the dark:here, here, here.Not come. Not safe. Just here —

the way a mother leaves a hall light onnot to call you homebut so that if you came, you'd know the way.

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Up next · no reading yetPrayer in a Language I'm ForgettingI still know the shape of the prayer, the way the body folds and rises, the cool of the floor against my forehead. It is the words that are going. They loosen a little each year, like a hem. I say them now the way you hum a song whose verses you have lost — carried by the melody, trusting my mouth to remember what my mind no longer holds. God, if you are listening, I hope you grade on intention. I hope the bowing counts. I hope the ache in the right place is its own kind of fluent.