AYA IBRAHIM
Said the Sea
The island was not round
or sand or green or blue.
The island was an island
of pearl tusks and grey yemeni daggers
and all the words in between.
There the crescent started
to grow hair and limb,
there he ate his almond names
off the fisherman's echoes and hooks.
But the crescent was not a crescent
and the island was not an island.
The crescent was a reaper's final graze
on the ivory cartridges of raw necks,
a cheliceral kiss on undulating, crystal lips,
an assassin's unlocked embrace
under the vanilla smoke of pyrethrum fields.
And the island was not round
or straight or red or green or blue.
The island broke waves
into ridgy, sickle shapes
And the waves curved
weevers inside glass caskets
And you, my crescent, hid
your real color under the sea,
hid like the real color of the sea.
Aya Ibrahim's poems have appeared in
Bateau, Word Riot, Foliate Oak, Istanbul Literature Review
and other journals. She is a native of Cairo, Egypt and will soon start her MFA in poetry at Indiana University, Bloomington.
(
aya862001@gmail.com)