Babo Kamel
What Remains
Cover Art: Claes Oldenburg, The Dropped Bowl, with Scattering Slices and Peels–In Advance of the Fountain for Metro-Dade Government Center. 1988. Offset lithograph. MOMA.
What Remains
i
My mother, a fixture at the gas stove stirring. Her hum, a sound score at sunset. Evening took its place at the table. Steam from the orange pot smelled of tomorrow. ii I remember the marrow I sucked, its slick slide between my teeth. Then tongue trace of hollow, how rough braille of bone remained after the swallow. iii Home was the drawer where the spoons went and the space behind the couch, where I breathed in what the cat breathed out. My room, the place where I could slip into my sleep self. iv No one banged on our door in the dark. v Night did not gnash its teeth. I did not lose a shoe in the mud. vi I did not wake up in a cage. |
Babo Kamel's poems have appeared in literary reviews in the US, Australia, and Canada. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson’s Program for Writers, is a Best of Net nominee, and a five-time Pushcart nominee. Her chapbook, After, is published with Finishing Line Press. Find her at: babokamel.com
past, Justin Holliday next, Laurie Kolp