The Crime

Someone knocked me down and mailed my corpse to a floating cavern.
Each part of my body sings a lullaby.
Sometimes I hear elephants telling a folk tale.
Sometimes I hear frogs drumming out of my ear.
The angel of death boils a banana to feed his young.
I am sweating wondering if the hell was a short joke.
A blind woman shedding her skin. She has a witch's fingers.
I look into her eyes and it takes me to a tulip garden.
My arm turned into a wise man.it talks to me as if he spent all his life as a philosopher.
I kneel among many little moons.
God is nearby, wearing a grand hat made of milky cloud.
Talk to me, he says pointing his finger to an upper window.
I have a genie inside, I say.
God laughs. This is an old joke.
I try to kill myself, but I remember that I am already dead.
The man who slaughtered me was an artist.
He knows how to squeeze castor oil into my fully open eyes.

Amirah Al Wassif is an award-winning published poet. Their poetry collection andquot;For Those Who Don’t Know Chocolate andquot; was published in February 2019 by Poetic Justice Books and arts, and their illustrated children book: The Cocoa Boy and Other Stories was published in February 2020. Another poetry collection andquot;to bury a curious girl andquot; was published by Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company. Their poems have appeared in several prints and online publications including South Florida Poetry, Birmingham Arts Journal, Hawaii Review, The Meniscus, Chiron Review, The Hunger, Writers Resist, Right Now, and several other publications.

Find more by Amirah Al Wassif in the Author Index.