On Finding the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Dante’s “Inferno”
By Omar Sakr
I slip into my insolence, sleek as an eel.
I have walked so many ways around God I can tell you
Holiness is a roundabout
With a thousand exit points labeled doubt;
Like the boy who unzipped my pants
In my sleep, who broke the zipper of my sleep
So I have lost the measure of rest since;
Like my father leaving before I knew him or could speak;
My body forever unkneeling to pray
Unless there’s a zipper in front of me, a boy in front
Of me a ghost a beckoning a gate where, perhaps,
If I open wide enough I will be able to wake,
Again, and still, soaked as I am in shame—still
I care about my Prophet’s name.
