Qamar قمر

Mark Fiddes

The moon-sighting committee

has confirmed the start of Ramadan.

I saw it too,

barefoot on artificial grass,

the clipped nail of its waxing crescent.

Ithaca. Sleeping on deck,

the boat drunk with us and groaning

timber and fish that flew

through our milky way,

mixing constellations as lovers do.

The hunted swan. The horned twins.

The wings of a crab.

Perhaps you loosed an arrow too.

Uncatchable

that could not survive exposure to air

but left a rip in night’s canvas,

a burst kiss in the fur-lined memory box

unlike all the forgotten times

we were perfectly indistinguishable

from daylight.

This year I will join the fasting

until the city wolfs down the sun

like a Medjool date.

I will follow any rite that unites those

who have been broken by starlight.

MARK FIDDES lives and writes in the Middle East. His fourth collection Hotel Petroleum will be published in June 2026 by Broken Sleep. He is the 2025 winner of the Ledbury Poetry Prize and the Plaza Prize. Recent work has appeared in The London Magazine, The Irish Times, Madrid Review and The Morning Star.