Bring Now the Angels

This collection juxtaposes text from Google Search autocomplete with the intimate language of prayer. Corporate jargon co-exists with the incantatory and ancient ghazal form. Ahmed’s second book of poetry explores the terrain of loss—of a beloved family member, of human dignity & potential, of the earth as it stands, of hope. Her poems weave mourning with the erratic process of healing, skepticism with an unsteady attempt to regain faith.

With poems that are by turns elegiac, biting, and tender, Bring Now the Angels conveys a desire to move toward transformation and rebirth, even among seemingly insurmountable obstacles: chronic disease, corporate greed, environmental harm, and a general atmosphere of anxiety and violence.

BRING NOW THE ANGELS

To test your pulse as you sleep.

Bring the healer            the howler                    the listening ear—

Bring                an apothecary               to mix               the tincture—

            We need the salve

the tablet                      the capsule

            of the hour—                Bring sword-eaters

and those          who will swallow fire—

                                                Fetch the guardian

to flatten the wheelchair,

                                    to hoist it toward heaven:

the public shuttle awaits

                                    the ceaseless trips to the clinic.

To the bedside manner

                                    summon witness: this medic’s

disdain toward patients              the physician’s dismissal

                                    of pain—

And call the druggist, again, to drug us senseless—

Bring a nomad              to index our debts

            tuck      each invoice                 into broken walls

of regret—                    Call the cleric               the clerk

            the messengers divine—