application for the position of abdelhalim hafez’s girl by Safia Elhillo
i go quiet for days i turn the color of mirrors
i turn the color of smoke men tell me sometimes
that blue becomes me when i answer my voice
is hoarse from disuse i am afraid of my body & the ways
that it fails me i faint a woman on the subway platform
catches me floating into the tracks i become the color
blue i don’t like to be touched i wonder why
more people have not been kidnapped by taxi drivers
white men ask me to say their names in arabic
ask where i’m [really from] i am six months
returned from sudan henna fading to look like burns
dusted up my arms i bleed & can't stop bleeding
i speak & my mouth is my biggest wound
every language is a borrowed joke i catch myself
complimenting strangers on their english i am six months
returned from incense smoke to soften the taste of river water
incense burned to avert the evil eye i see a possessed
woman scream when a prayer is read her eyes the color
of smoke & mine is a story older than water Motionpoem by Donna Lamar here Art by Pavel Mishkin
Recommended listening: Song Exploder: Baths
Links of the Day: The Look of Literature The First Exhibition A Mother’s Desperate Plea to End a Brutal Family Pattern