My Favorite Poems

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• "Modern Sudanese Poetry" by Safia Elhillo Visit Safia Elhillo's Page Read Poem

  my husband works his fingers
  into the knot muscled against my spine     & my dead
  stay dead           my hair a knotted cursive language
  my ligature       my grief  barely literate      my amulets
  knotted around my neck & wrists     my language
  my language     cursive & silent         glottal & knotted
  & scarring the cheeks of my dead      adorning the hair
  of my dead       tallow in their braided hair
  i read the books in translation     where is the poem
  & circle every word i know               acacia     lupin
  sandalwood & ash      they ululate       my dead
  they squat like brides          over clay pots of smoke
  a yolk suspended in each open eye          & some
  in truth are not dead    my dead     & i am who
  is lost        who is not counted among the living
  the poem is not owed me       i was wed in all the colors
  of my dead        the reddening     the borrowed gold
  i wrote the poem in translation      i wrote the poem
  in the loophole     i wrote the poem in cursive
  i snarled it     i picked apart the threads & wove a shroud
  i was wed in it     i unfastened      i broke my fast with apricots
  furred like the ears of my dead      i looked laterally
  for ancestors      i descended left & right     i read the book
  in arabic      knew each letter & its sound     & did not
  recognize the words for tallow     for ululate     my dead
  my languages      my ligatures      smoke in my loosened hair

• "Modern Sudanese Poetry" by Safia Elhillo Visit Safia Elhillo's Page Read Poem

  my husband works his fingers
  into the knot muscled against my spine     & my dead
  stay dead           my hair a knotted cursive language
  my ligature       my grief  barely literate      my amulets
  knotted around my neck & wrists     my language
  my language     cursive & silent         glottal & knotted
  & scarring the cheeks of my dead      adorning the hair
  of my dead       tallow in their braided hair
  i read the books in translation     where is the poem
  & circle every word i know               acacia     lupin
  sandalwood & ash      they ululate       my dead
  they squat like brides          over clay pots of smoke
  a yolk suspended in each open eye          & some
  in truth are not dead    my dead     & i am who
  is lost        who is not counted among the living
  the poem is not owed me       i was wed in all the colors
  of my dead        the reddening     the borrowed gold
  i wrote the poem in translation      i wrote the poem
  in the loophole     i wrote the poem in cursive
  i snarled it     i picked apart the threads & wove a shroud
  i was wed in it     i unfastened      i broke my fast with apricots
  furred like the ears of my dead      i looked laterally
  for ancestors      i descended left & right     i read the book
  in arabic      knew each letter & its sound     & did not
  recognize the words for tallow     for ululate     my dead
  my languages      my ligatures      smoke in my loosened hair

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