Line 3, Kit-Kat
I want to walk the world in you. Put orange rindson the gas to eat. Bring you pieces of me like anoffering. I forgot my family in Alexandria,thirty years late. The fisherman catches the absolute endof the world. Our knees bumping on the train:a melting point. Half-watching, half-watched.I love surveillance. Your eyes like a ghazel.Home is in my hands, my knees benton the corniche falling into the half-up cement slabs.The sea water flinches and falls. The castle is locked, guarded.There is a new railway blackening the Nile in Zamalek.Evening is coming. We're under the sun, stalling timein a queue so as to officially let go for 600 LE.The sun is awash. Another Palestinian bumps into meat Holm. He lives in Port Said. We are all tryingto go home. But here in the stillness,a not-awake Friday morning, I blink slowly.I hear you: the rush of the wind,the silence of the trees, the hush of our cops,the decay of your hands.Love poem: we share a coffee on the metro.Every day is a date with myself.The trees of our neighborhood have hidden us for years.You are a soldier. I am in Alexandria,burying myself all over again.
Feature Date
- January 21, 2024
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Copyright © 2023 by leena aboutaleb.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
leena aboutaleb is an Egyptian and Palestinian writer. She is asking you to commit to material and tangible solidarity with the liberation of Palestine, from every fracture and ability you possess. Make the monsters untenable for a new world to finally kiss the sun and our children in liberation. She’ll see you in the next world over, fresh bread on the kitchen table.
Autumn 2023
London
England
Poetry Editor
André Naffis-Sahely
Reviews Editor
Isabelle Baafi
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