ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Samiah Haque is a Bangladeshi-American Kundiman fellow, raised in Saudi Arabia, and a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers' Program in Poetry. Her work appears in or is forthcoming from Prairie Schooner, The Journal, The Collagist, Santa Clara Review, Nashville Review, Paper Darts, CURA, Cimarron Review, Winter Tangerine Review and elsewhere. She works at the University of Michigan Medical School.
Mother’s Elbows
Mother’s elbows are kiramun katibin1,
as Rilke’s angels, a terrifying weight,
of the darkest lids
over the blackest suns.
All day they witness.
All night they compose.
We say to her:
Your tongue is a vessel of lament.
Your feet are crackled with fear.
She says to us:
Beware laughter is a thief,
Beware the lightening of your soul.
Once, I held her elbows
like a mango, full in my fists.
Sunk my teeth in the pulpy orange,
sucking them to bone.
1 In Islamic tradition, kiraman katibin (Arabic: كاتبین ًكراما" honourable scribes"), are two angels called Raqib and Atid, believed by Muslims to record a person's actions.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
