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Poetry

Three poems

Amna Alamir

Three poems from a collection worked on over the summer of 2021 that explore the unconscious state via dreams and repressed memories.

 

In goes Splenda

That awkward time in the afternoon when

husbands roll over, yawning with the moon

with the lady next door who wears pointed

pink nails and wags her tail under the duvet.

She wonders at the claw marks, undone

stitching, frail whimper of the sheets beating

beneath her. She hates Fridays, mellow playdates,

the slow grind of small talk. To be human, is an

afterthought. She unfolds her limbs

like whimsy paper                  floating skin-pulp unsure

whether to migrate over          to the real sugar

sap. The stirring of I hate kids steams against windows

thick peppery fog

trickles down their voices

barely muffled. It’s not a secret anymore.

 

 

Quiet

 

At dawn

the sun wobbles over unwanted views.

Things are happening.

No one cares.

A mother holds onto her children

 

clipping their bones together.

The younger one walks backwards.

It is a sign of a gifted child

(who knew)

her sister believes she is a penguin.

 

Far off

the steam from a loaf of bread rises

too enclosed

in a lattice of petals.

Its yeast rotting sweetness

 

flares customers forward

and their nostrils

are just another way

to embody jargon, breathe

out a load of syllables.

 

Blue skies and ribbed clouds

are sullen, soiled

by saw shaped faces

peering out of windows

there is light murdering

the last thump of darkness.

 

I think back to the days

I chopped up worm tails on rocks

and watched them wriggle. I was four

disgusted, and they didn’t die.

What’s wrong with you? my mother said.

 

One small summer I held a pigeon in my hands

overwhelmed by the wonder

squeezed my love too tightly. I was five

filled with fresh fault

and flailing feathers.

 

In the jungle of school, I hid

between lessons, the darkness of my skin

where girls huddled and sang. I was six

pushed down with empty pockets

promises of not one of us.

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