If My Voice Is Not Reaching You

     If my voice is not reaching you
     add to it the echo—
     echo of ancient epics

     And to that—
     a princess

     And to the princess—your beauty

     And to your beauty—
     a lover's heart

     And in the lover's heart
     a dagger

From Rococo and Other Worlds by Afzal Ahmed Syed. Copyright © 2010 by Afzal Ahmed Syed. Used by permission of Wesleyan University Press.