Study of mollusks at sunset, in three parts

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i.

when sunset bitters
I walk through darkness to kneel
to no one
but The One

treading darkness
like my first swim, how 
I didn't drown?
Met the sea as a stranger, now

we are intimate
lovers, the best of friends
- maghrib and I,
the perilous ocean that
saves me every night
from myself.

Many things in this way are oceanic many men are oceans.

When I see The Name written

I see the legs that walk to bend
when sunset is still sweet.

ii.

High tide: two men search for muscles in Asilah, it is neither sea nor sand.
How their fingers must taste like sea salt,
always. Searching for sunlight, gold, pink, onyx. Turning sand over, turning it into clouds.
and I want to shout down to them "the sun is already set!
Search after fajr and you will swim in gold"
 

iii.
 

we cannot speak of them now:
the hands that search for purple-black shells in a serene sea,
it would be the inversion of sanctity.

here, in the city we turn over every
exhale

like searching for pearls among pebbles, praying
that in the inversion
there is another chance for life; an inhale
we have forgotten how to embrace,

a sanctuary to exist within usthat cannot exist without,
we yearn
for indispensability.

(how our hands must taste
like the searching!)