Guest Edited Poetry

Ghazal: In the Rain

by Zeina Hashem Beck

Shenandoah Literary Magazine · Zeina Hashem Ghazal In the Rain

It’s impossible to lie in the rain.
It’s (im)pratical to die in the rain.

I forgot that you’re gone when I saw you
in my dream, though you were dry in the rain.

The sun’s irrelevant for the poet
whose language is the sky in the rain.

The coffee’s hot, the coffee’s cold between us.
Our meeting is a goodbye in the rain.

Bring me the blanket, love. & the window,
which is the house. No evil eye in the rain.

This isn’t traffic, but an old longing—
if you must ask it, ask why in the rain.

What use is Beauty, O tortured Sayyab?
Yours is the sole lullaby in the rain.

Zeina Hashem Beck is the author of This Was Supposed to Be About Beauty, a collection of mirror sonnets forthcoming from Penguin Books in March 2027. She’s the winner of the 2023 Arab American Book Award for Poetry for O, which was named a Best Book of the Year by Literary Hub and The New York Public Library. She’s also the author of Louder than Hearts and To Live in Autumn, as well as the chapbooks 3arabi Song and There Was and How Much There Was. Her work has appeared in LARB, Lithub, The Nation, Academy of American Poets, Poetry, and elsewhere. She grew up in Lebanon and currently resides in the Bay Area.

FROM Volume 75, Number 2

Issue 75.2, Spring 2026

Ghazal: In the Rain

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