Wake-up Call

Armen Davoudian

I can see my mother, apron over her nightgown,setting the table for breakfast, a stack of lavashsteaming at the center, honey and milk skin,feta with fruit, chickpea-and-chicken mashdusted with cinnamon. I can see my father,already in his coveralls and cap,filling a cup to the brim with hot tapwaterand emptying it into another cupand emptying that cup into anotheruntil all three are warmed for tea. I can hearthe kettle whistling and pull the covers tightaround my head, against the coming light,for any moment now they will open the doorand lift the covers and find that I'm not there.

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Armen Davoudian’s poems and translations from Persian have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNIThe Sewanee Review, Waxwing and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in poetry from Johns Hopkins University, and his work has been supported by scholarships from Bread Loaf and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He grew up in Isfahan, Iran and is currently a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.
 

Issue 26

Baltimore, Maryland

Editor & Founder
Stephen Reichert

Senior Editor
Daniel Todd

Associate Editors
Dan Cryer
Clare Banks
Traci O'Dea
Freeman Rogers
William Camponovo

Assistant Editors
Kristin Lindholm
Clifford Williams
Jared Fischer
Jocelyn Heath
Kari Hawkey

Founded in 1998, Smartish Pace, a Baltimore literary magazine that appears in April and October, and publishes poems, essays, and interviews.

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