A Beggar at Heaven’s Door – a poem by Sakina Qazi

A Beggar at Heaven’s Door


I kneel at your gate in the maiden winter,
Near the cherry tree
And the sycamore
The painted fence
And the lantern pole
As they stand in their frozen languor.
I think, stooped on these ragged knees of mine,
What a callous cure is frost!
And her house of numb, numb rest
That never welcomes me.

Last year and the year before
My palms were cupped and dried
But they were contained.
Now they bleed and flail
And stain your entryway.
I watch the blood as it runs,
Four rouge gullies in the gravel.

Last year and the year before
My call to you was unsteady,
But it was civil, it was clear.
Now it is unmoored;
In the rain it cracks and splits
With that mauve sky besieged.

But your gate is yet unopened, 
And thus I kneel
Through all these gelid nights.

Sakina Qazi is from Long Island, NY. She is currently a junior at the University of Miami, where she is Editor of Mangrove Literary Journal.