Khaleel Gheba
GIANT POSSUM DRAWS CROWD IN NICETOWN

From the west, a swell arrives
with pomp, its wet regalia slaps
my windowpane. I want to die

so very much tonight. Not for
want of love or peace, but
for a slow tone’s constancy

in my ear. For uneasy light off
scuffed metal. For insecure
shelving’s squeak. For no one

can make a left without effort.
For that sphere of hot pain
in my wrist, behind tendons

like cell bars, like cello strings.
A beleaguerment by moments
as constant as rain, as standard

as a thing of the woods arriving
without invite. Everyone gawks
at its size. “How can this even be?”

Khaleel Gheba received his MFA in Poetry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2014. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Redivider, Bayou Magazine, the Bellingham Review, Split Lip, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Maryland, where he works as a public librarian.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #23.