logo


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)



Boxcar Poetry Review - ISSN 1931-1761