Sunday Poem

application for the position of abdelhalim hafez's girl

By Safia Elhillo (From The January Children)

i go quiet for days     i turn the colour of mirrors

i turn the colour of smoke     men tell me sometimes

that blue becomes me     when i answer my voice

is hoarse from disuse  i am afraid of my body & the ways

that it fails me   i faint   a woman on the subway platform

catches me   floating into the tracks   i become the colour

blue     i don't like to be touched     i wonder why

more people     have not been kidnapped by taxi drivers

white men ask me     to say their names in arabic

ask where i'm     [really from]     i am six months

returned from sudan     henna fading to look like burns

dusted up my arms     i bleed & can't stop bleeding

i speak & my mouth     is my biggest wound

every language     is a borrowed joke     i catch myself

complimenting strangers   on their english   i am six months

returned from incense smoke   to soften the taste of river water

incense burned   to avert the evil eye   i see a possessed 

woman scream   when a prayer is read   her eyes the color

of smoke     & mine is a story older than water