sleep paralysis on the third night of Muharram

Photo: Sander Dewerte

i hold the summer cantaloupe/ study it 

for bitterness/ break into

it with teeth & face mouthful of hard rind/

then grasp soft orange meat with

    tongue

//

i have become as

     unhinged as

a bug with a

         broken stem/ the

maroon prayer rug

    is folded (or spread) like the

(un)accustomed limbs/

everything facing east/ everything

bruising the night

 //

& suddenly i am the 

    twisted thing in the street/

loosening its bones/ tugging its neck 

forward/ suddenly i am collapsing

away from the trees as they rustle/

an intimacy i cannot

   bear 

//

but look at the sky! how it 

spreads! a thing in vastness/ or the

perils of the 

gutted guava in the

dark & weathered palm of the

reaching hand.

Fatima Elbadri is a Sudanese-American writer whose work includes themes of culture, communal experience, and liminal spaces. Her writing can be found or is forthcoming in The Passionfruit Review, Kalahari Review, Rowayat, The Marbled Sigh, and elsewhere.

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