Prayer
Mahfuza, your body is my rosary:
I observe you and my prayer is done.
In any prayer other than yours,
my body is not cowed in such attention.
I am exhausted by your fire
so that you can be happy.
At your closeness, vigorous God arises.
A shield, you check His slanting rays.
With your touch, my pangs come down
by seventy times. I practice the exact
spelling of your name every day. Somewhere,
Tasdid Zazam seems to be read. Men listen
to my overflowing recitations. With your name,
I sacrifice my offspring, frame my head
in immolation. Modern-Ismail will not tremble.
Mahfuza, your body is my rosary.
I observe you and my prayer is done.
Mozid Mahmud (He/Him) is a poet, essayist, and novelist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is the author of more than 50 titles, some of which are In Praise of Mahfuza (1989), Toward the Pasture (1995), Odyssey of the Ball (2001), The Fable of the Apple(2002), The Birth of the Maternity Clinic (2006), Nazul: The Poet of the Third World (1997), Rabindranath and the Indian Subcontinent (2011), and Post-Colonialist Literature & Others (2006). Recently, his fiction and essays have appeared in Singapore Unbound, Provenance Journal, Indian Review, Writer’s Lane, Taint Journal, Borderless, and in Commonwealth Writers’ Adda forum. Many of his works have been translated into English, Chinese, Hindi and French. His novel Memorial Club will be out from Gaudy Boy in 2024.