Post Nightclub Suhoor

By Scherezade

The crescent moon, sharp at the corners

is abrupt, tasting bitter as oversteeped chai,

cloying as jalebi

Ramadan jolts awake the hunger

for spiritual resonance, the ummah

I struggle to fold into.

I seek Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

in the thrumming bass layered underneath Carnatic ragas

in the ambient pink lights and the dingy walls,

humid from sandalwood cologne

in the bead of sweat down the column of their throat

in the mesh crop top overlaying pierced nipples and a nazar pendant

the club runs out of frozen virgin piña coladas within the hour.

We pour out into the unusual early May cold snap

you check your phone and worry about our growling bellies

and the gray film overlaying the concrete horizon.

There is no line at Veselka,

the smell of boiled cabbage and grease fills our pores

the cheese pierogies burn the roofs of our mouths

we wash them down with diet coke and ice water.

The milky sun slowly filters through the foggy windows

you turn to watch and I think

Perhaps He has been with us the whole time.

Scherezade is a New England-based transplant from New York. She can be found by a window wrestling with her diaspora blues while petting her cat Vinny.