Maya Salameh
EULOGY WITH RED LIPSTICK
after yesika salgado
3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib v3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib you continue painting on your lipstick
3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib red3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib crimson 3aib 3aib cherry 3aib 3aib scarlet 3aib blood red 3aib 3aib 3aib blood 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib maybe part of it is the pain 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib ensuring your mouth stays berry-stained 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib something about 3aib slipping your bullet of choice into a handbag 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib you smile & split the Red Sea 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib
you reapply your bruise 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib your burgundy perfume 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib your red like rubbing alcohol 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib 3a3aib 3aib 3aib 3aib you wear wine so well
BELLYDANCE KINETICS
I have a brother who suns down the street.
I stage. sashay. shimmy funerals
down my sleeve. every spring
a new casket. eventually el cajon
will run out of ground. I have a brother who suns
down the street. he watches me
sway. I am teaching him the alphabet.
my skirt gets caught in my heels. I waltz
water through wheels. shimmy. my hip
drops
twice. three taps. I lean. I have a brother
who suns
down the street. my ankle seeps ichor. beat
switch. I sweat.
a body is just a corpse
that hasn’t admitted it yet. I have a brother who suns down the street.
I tried
prison on. it
didn’t fit. every time I walk
it jingles. I follow the coins
in the crux of my bicep. my wingspan
must be at least forty feet. I have a brother
who suns down the street. my heart partitioned for stew
meat. are you hungry? please
eat.
RESCHEDULING
when I stand in
your room facing your scribbled
in chest its punctuations & notches
the indentation of your throat I want to breathe
you. you
smirk with the fabric of epochs
& I unspool
the paradox of clocks. all
the coming generations wait for you to finish
speaking. your nose is
shaded like cognac. the hours are
liquid & I split my neck for ichor
to spill out by which I mean
all the way up to my voice box
is gold. you tell me the sea
is your last surviving cousin. I chip
the indigo polish off my nails in memoriam.
you line
most things with kohl. I
appreciate the precedent. you leave me
like my investments class. I itinerary
you through the roof.
AN EXECUTION ALWAYS LASTS A LONG TIME
“which is closer to my heart, a soldier from my
country or a poet from my enemy’s country?” (ghayath almadhoun)
wine aspires to age like me. all these complexes & no chemistry to show for it. I
know nothing of my country. I
pierce my ears with elegies. in the heart of the heart of another country, I
remember my mother as the shade with which we pave the roads of holy books. I
will write the last branch of the cedar in my floor, I
will write of the price of bread. I
scrape continents under my fingernails & I
live a contradiction. back when the Dead Sea was alive & home was still an abstract
noun signifying desire, we had black currants for eyes, lace in our gums, before a
country meant a blur of bad news, a godforsaken geography, a gaping wound stitched
between the Tigris & Euphrates. eventually home becomes real & not just an abstract
noun signifying desire. chamomile cake is rising in the oven, gold manna in rectangular
gridlock; I
bumped into reality & her water broke on the sidewalk.
Maya Salameh is a Syrian-American poet and performer from San Diego. She is a 2016 National Student Poet, America’s highest honor for youth poets, and has performed her writing at venues including the Obama White House and Carnegie Hall. She is a poet fellow of the William Male Foundation and Leonard Slade Endowment. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the Greensboro Review, Asian American Writer’s Workshop and Burningword Literary Journal. Her chapbook, rooh, is forthcoming with Paper Nautilus Press in 2020.