What Water Does

A Ghazal

What water does begins with touch. (Picture: Hazrat Abbas’s right-hand sanctuary in Karbala. Source )

We overlight the gallery until whiteness loses its eye—
the empty cup remains thirst-bound, waiting only for rooting touch.

We archive some wounds by giving them dates—
the hands keep carrying, severed, toward every rooting touch.

We exhibit every wound of belonging before the algorithm—
Abbas's hands keep time with thirst, returning to rooting touch.

We bury grief beneath the word after—
Abbas’s hands carry the before into every rooting touch.

If the desert is turned into border, cobalt mining, representation, market—
Abbas's hands remember what water does:
rooting touch.

---

---

Lineage Note

This poem belongs to a lineage of embodied acts that endure beyond violence. It is touched by the mourning traditions of Karbala and by the devotional memory of Hazrat Abbas, whose severed hands remain inseparable from the ongoing act of carrying water to the thirsty.