DILRUBA AHMED

What the Fortune-Teller Said

Last night I dreamt
of the book of Genesis,
or pharaohs and golden
light and loveliness. Then
   the boardwalk
splintered in our throats,
the unspoken
reeling us
through another bucket
of quarters—ten or twenty bucks.

Inside we spin for hours,
            a dream sweet
as a fruit’s most rotten part
is sweet.

On the drive home,
        the skyline teases,
bridges filament-thin
while marshlands spread open,

nothing more.
At the roadside:
the paper milkweed pod—
silken tufts,
the broken shell in our hands.






Dilruba Ahmed's debut book of poems, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf, 2011), won the 2010 Bakeless Prize for poetry. Her writing has appeared in Blackbird, Cream City Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review, and Indivisible: Contemporary South Asian American Poetry. Her poems are forthcoming in Asian American Literary Review, Philadelphia Stories, Cerise Press, and The Normal School. She can be found online at www.dilrubaahmed.com. (ahmed_ruba@yahoo.com)



Boxcar Poetry Review - ISSN 1931-1761