I want this Ramadan to last a little longer, so that I may continue to love the sun for a few more days. As I’m sitting inside the mosque, observing the world within a world, I glimpse a man walking in, wearing brown dress pants and a green shirt. He takes off his shoes with the demeanour of a man who’s neither overly quiet nor obnoxiously loud. I remain there to take in his sight, the calmness with which he carries himself. The blur of it all, from forgetting to wear my contacts, adds beauty.
I hear a congregant performing the adhan; his voice is hideous. I prepare for prayer, reminding myself that everyone deserves a chance in Islam, even those whose voices are unmelodic. Prophet Mohammed’s vision was for Muslims to pray together, shoulder to shoulder with hearts beating in unison, so I lean both shoulders next to the men on my sides, without looking at their faces, my feet next to their feet at the front row. I always pray in the same manner: my eyes closed, lachrymose, awaiting their tears to finally stream.
I clutch onto every letter the imam recites, and I feel an urge to cry. I prostrate myself, then rise, ensuring my shoulders are touching the men beside me. I feel another impulse to forgo my tears in harmony with the Quranic recitation, albeit I’m neither sad nor elated. Rien! Suddenly, I sense a soothing warmth from the shoulder to my left. I press my shoulder against his; he presses his against mine. I rub my foot against his, as he rubs his against mine. The imam is about to finish the prayer. I prepare myself to open my eyes and shake hands with the worshipper next to me. I look to my left.
“Taqabbal Allah,” I say, shaking his hand.
“Taqabbal Allah!”
My vision is hazy; I watch his face as if looking into a fuzzy screen. I feel it’s the man whose demeanour caught my attention earlier when he first stepped into the mosque. I take a double look at his clothes, and I surmise it’s him. I only saw the side of his face prior, failing to notice his eyes, two nightly maelstroms, slightly darker than his brown skin but lighter than his curly hair.
“I’m Khalil,” I say.
“I’m Anees.”
“En chanté.”
“En chanté. I love the name Khalil, by the way, because I love Khalil Gibran.”
“I love him too!” I respond and head to the kitchen to bring out the food.
As I finish laying the trays on the tablecloth, I see Anees is still there. I smile at him. He smiles back. There are no vacant spots next to him, so I sit elsewhere.
It’s time to pray again but Anees has already left.
I grab a decaf cappuccino from Olimpico, the neighbourhood’s coffee shop, as I return to my place after prayer. It’s snowing, which makes it a little poetic, so I think of Anees. Something about him evokes a poem by Mahmoud Darwish in which he speaks of forgetfulness, fleeting love, and a night’s forgotten rose. I like the poem because I hold onto all of my memories and jot them down, lest I someday forget. I find my mind drifting away from notions of memory and forgetting to the staleness of decaf coffee, the softness of the snowflakes on my face.
I live right by métro Mont Royal where there’s a florist. I stop by and buy a red rose. I’ll later store it next to my collection of poetry books. I have a handkerchief at home, a burial shroud for when the rose dies.
◊ ◊ ◊
I volunteered at the mosque to break my fast in congregation, so that I may experience my deprivation and everyone else’s, near and far, present and gone. I go there on most days to perform the sunset prayer. The mosque is a hole in the wall. It could be easily missed if one isn’t in the Mile End for the sole purpose of finding God. The anterior–minimalistic with a few crescents hanging by the windows–renders the mosque akin to a garderie. I’d always frequented this corner of the neighbourhood for the 5$ gnocchi window restaurant, and I stumbled upon my little hole in the wall of a mosque while licking the gnocchi tomato sauce off my fingers. I guess I was subconsciously looking for God.
It’s Friday and I’m almost at the mosque. I spot Anees walking on the same block across from me. I speed up a little. We arrive at the mosque door together.
“Assalamu alaikum,” I say, placing my hand on the doorknob.
“Walaikum Assalam!”
“Après toi.”
“Merci!”
I go around shaking hands with everyone, and he follows suit. I sit down on the left side where a frame with a Quranic verse hangs above me. He sits next to me, our legs touching.
“You’ve been living here long?” He asks.
“I grew up in Montréal. You?”
“I kind of grew up here as well, after my family immigrated when I was 12.”
“We moved here when I was 12, too.”
He goes to the other side, picks up a copy of the Quran, kisses it, tapping it against his forehead. He holds the Quran with one hand and rests his hand on my shoulder as he sits down.
“I wanna read before prayer. Wanna read with me?”
“Yes!”
He lays the Quran on his knee, between us. He turns the page to surat Yusuf and we read in silence–shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, lest the hearts differ.
While he’s reading, I ask him what the word “ousba” means, although I know the meaning. He holds my finger in between his thumb and index finger and places it on the word.
“It’s archaic Arabic for ‘group.’”
We pray in the first row again; I take in every breath of his as though a recital.
◊ ◊ ◊
I ask Anees if he’ll be taking the métro.
“I live just right here,” he responds, “on Rue Parc.”
“Oh! OK!”
“I can walk you to the métro.”
“No, thank you. I’ll walk alone.”
He walks out of the prayer room, gesturing for me to follow him, grabs my jacket from the rack, hands it to me. He puts on his jacket and shoes and opens the door.
“Après toi, habibi.”
“Good night!” I utter, extending my hand for a hand shake.
He shakes my hand and plants a kiss on my knuckles. “À demain.”
“À demain,” I chuckle.
◊ ◊ ◊
I’m an hour early to help with giving out iftar today. Anees joins to give us a hand. We break fast together. I put my hand on his back and offer him a date.
“Thank you but I don’t eat dates,” he says, as he feeds me the date.
“Thank you!”
We pray together.
“Are you walking home?” He asks.
“Yes!”
“Can I walk you home?”
“Of course!”
◊ ◊ ◊
The weather is nice today, for Montréal standards at least, which means il fait pas frette. Anees walks with his shoulder rubbing mine, as though we’re still praying.
“Why did you choose surat Yusuf yesterday?” I ask.
“I like that surah a lot. It’s my favourite chapter in the Quran. It reads like a short story, and it discusses interesting concepts regarding sexual autonomy and consent.”
“Yes!!”
“Mahmoud Darwish wrote a poem about Prophet Yusuf’s story. Have you read it?”
“I love the poem and the song rendition by Marcel Khalife.”
He pulls out his phone and plays the song out loud as we’re walking down Rue Laurier.
“Yusuf is the hottest Prophet God has created. Prophet Mohammed is reported to have said that God has put half of the universe’s beauty into Prophet Yusuf.”
“Yes, who doesn’t love a hot Prophet?” I ask.
He laughs, averting his gaze towards me, “I like my men Arab with gorgeous brown skin and dark eyes,” he states while staring into my eyes so intensely that I can see the reflection of the light pole behind us in his cornea.
We turn right on St. Laurent. Anees is singing in Arabic about love and the desire to forget love and forget oneself. He’s a horrible singer and I love it.
“Can I hold your arm?”
“Of course!” He answers, extending his elbow.
We turn left on Mont Royal, then arrive at Rue Berri.
“My apartment is right here,” I say, as we stand in front of my building.
“Bonne soirée!” He responds and hugs me, his arms around my shoulders, my hands touching his lower back. He plants a kiss on my cheek and grabs my right hand and kisses it.
“Bonne nuit, habibi!” I reply. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the mosque, eh?”
“Of course, cutie!”
◊ ◊ ◊
At this point, I haven’t forgotten about God; I just found another beloved at the mosque. I practice abstinence in Ramadan, which makes me a little more pensive than usual. Had I met Anees at a different time, I would’ve probably hooked up with him and lost interest the moment I orgasmed. The Arabs say that marriage is the graveyard of love. For me, sex can also be the graveyard of love. In the absence of sex, I’m able to focus on other things–how he smiles right after prayer, how he mutters his prayers a little louder than most people, how he holds my hand while reading the Quran.
Anees and I break our fast together again. He has his arm around my shoulder as we’re eating and is entertaining a conversation with an older man about the weather.
“I want you to come over to my place,” he tells me, after prayer.
“T’habites seul?”
“Ouais, habibi!”
We leave the mosque after prayer.
◊ ◊ ◊
His apartment door opens onto the living room, a green couch without any pillows, no paintings on the wall. The bedroom is to the left. He lies down on one end of the couch, and I perch on the other end. He smiles and puts his feet on my thighs.
“Do you find it difficult?” He asks.
“Do I find what difficult?”
“To look at a handsome man of authentic Arab beauty and not kiss him?”
“What’s your definition of authentic Arab beauty?” I ask, not that I care about the definition but I want to divert the question before I get too aroused and break my commitment to celibacy in the holy month.
“Authentic Arab beauty would refer to someone who looks like me or you–dark skin, brown eyes, curly black hair. It’s the beauty praised in Arabic poetry. Our songs constantly sing of it.” He inclines forward, kisses my forehead. “Can we cuddle?” He asks. “Ramadan vibes. Halal only. Don’t worry.”
I put my back against his chest, my head nestled between his neck and arms. I keep tilting my head back to kiss his cheek and he keeps tilting forward to kiss mine.
“It’s time to pray again,” he says, a few minutes later.
He gestures for me to follow him into the bathroom to perform ablution. He washes his hand in a rubbing motion three times. I kiss the back of his hand and the hair on his knuckles, and wash my hands three times. Cupping both hands with water, he rinses his mouth three times and fills both palms with water again, bringing his hands closer to my mouth. I sip the water and rinse my mouth three times. We continue the rest of the ablution. I take notice of his hairy legs, how the leg hair softens, the water dripping atop his feet. I follow him to his bedroom. He throws two prayer rugs on the floor.
We pray glued to one another, our wet hairy arms rubbing. My eyes closed, the tears I’ve been holding in hitherto are about to spurt, but the prayer ends without shedding a tear. I embrace him, nuzzling his neck.
“I’m leaving for BC for work but will be back for Eid. Can you spend the night here?”
“I’m not that agreeable but I can’t help but say yes to you,” I respond, giggling.
He throws a tank top and pajama pants at my face, and grabs another pair of pants and a tank top in his hands.
“I’ll change in the bathroom. You can change here,” he says.
I follow him into the messy bed and lie down next to him. I hold him in between my arms, his head on my chest.
“You know what Abu Tammam says?”
“Don’t tell me I’m your first lover, liar!”
“Well, he says ‘love is not but for the first beloved,’ but I say ‘love is not but for the
seventeenth beloved,’” he utters, laughing.
“Well, so long as I’m not a forgettable encounter.”
“I’ll remember you forever, my handsome king, my seventeenth habibi.”
I rub my feet against his feet, my hand caressing his curly beard, and we fall into the night.
It’s finally Eid. I’ve put on the purple kameez shalwar my friend gifted me, as I get ready for my OG beloved, God, and my new beloved, Anees. The mosque is busier than ever with children everywhere. It looks more festive with the extra cheap decorations of crescents and stars. Before coming to the mosque, I brought with me the rose I bought on Mont Royal the first night I met Anees, shrouded in a handkerchief.
I see Anees in the first row, wearing silk pants and a silk shirt, earthy colours. I stand next to him; we embrace. I hear the imam’s Allahu Akbar so I bring my attention back to God, knowing that my heart will be beating unitedly with my beloved’s. I place my shoulder next to his shoulder, my foot next to his foot, lest the hearts differ. We pray.
I shake hands and exchange kisses on the cheek with some worshippers, and I wait outside for Anees in front of la ruelle by the mosque. I see Anees approaching me with his serene smile. I put my hand in my pocket to pull out the rose. He runs up before I can even move my hand, and roughly presses my arms. He kisses me on the lips, his upper lip above my lower lip. He rests his lips in between mine, pressing harder. I can taste his saliva. He kisses my upper lip, and I can feel his lips getting tighter around mine; his hand sliding down my left arm, holding my hand and then letting it go, as he grips my other arm and aligns both our lower and upper lips. I can feel him leaving something in my left hand, but I’m too concentrated on the kiss to know what it is. He pulls away, standing still in front of me, and I see a red rose in my hand.
I smile and kiss him. I shed a tear. He kisses the tear streaming down my cheek. I weep heavier tears this time, and I laugh. He rests both hands on my shoulder and laughs with me. I cry more and laugh louder. He laughs along. I pull out my shrouded-red-rose and hand it to him. He smiles and kisses my hand before he takes it. The sidewalk is getting crowded with people, chatter, and winds. We’re at the centre of it all, each of us holding a rose in one hand, and putting the other on his man’s shoulder. I’m still weeping, and we’re both laughing.
Nofel is a writer and poet whose work appears in EVENT, Geist, Canadian Notes & Queries, and Contemporary Verse 2, among others. He was selected for Best Canadian Poetry 2026.
