I think your name
is less like itself
is more like your middle name
and most like the way you’ve held
your pencil ever since you practiced
cursive, and the ridge of callus
precisely on your finger that it made.
Known more to the ring than the lover.
Known as in tell, tell not as say.
A little muteness rubs against
a thousand loopings of your name.

Miles Cayman, AB’24, studied Arabic at the University of Chicago. His poetry and translations have been published in Subnivean, The Midwest Quarterly, Gasher, The Paris Review, and ArabLit. “Ø” was originally published in Gasher Journal. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved to the author.