Kishkiyya

Lyrics

Okay. I'm home. Finally.

The night took everything I had and a little more I didn't —
the floor came up, the room went sideways, and the morning's all forbidden.
But there's a pot on the back burner, low and slow since who-knows-when,
a tenth-century mercy out of Baghdad, calling me back home again.
Lamb gone soft as an apology, chickpeas, onion, fermented grain —
somebody wrote this down in a cookbook to take away exactly this kind of pain.

Kishkiyya, Kishkiyya,
the gold at the end of the storm —
ladle me back into a person,
warm me down to where I was warm.
I have prayed to colder gods than you
in rooms that never loved me at all —
Kishkiyya, you forgive the whole long fall.

I don't deserve a thing this kind, but kindness doesn't care —
it never asks me what I did, it just pulls up a chair.
The kishk's a little sour, a little funky, like it knows me well;
the steam climbs up like incense and it rings me like a bell.
I'll do it all again, I'm not gonna pretend I won't —
but right now the only thing I'm chasing is the bottom of this bowl.

Golden age, golden bowl —
they cured the body and they meant the soul.

Kishkiyya, Kishkiyya,
the gold at the end of the storm —
ladle me back into a person,
warm me down to where I was warm.
I have prayed to colder gods than you —
Kishkiyya, you answer the call,
you forgive the whole long fall.

There she is. There I am. Good as new.
…mostly.