“Il ny’a rien de hors-langue” JD
come from a wide square full of bodies
moving like dark sails in the harbor, sweet
figs, staying still impossible—quick eyes
hips, misty glasses of mint tea, salt dust
of Khamsin and Salano. Warning. If you fail
who you are, beware of straying camels
looking for water, halophytes, thyme and acheb.
Clapping, counting, speaking hands know
why your dress is longer behind your heels,
erasing footprints in the sand. Nobody traces
your blackened eyelids. Use the smooth
soot from yesterday’s fire. Look at the heat,
red clay on ears and lips, ancient lake lifting
a duende, older than any word, the hunger beat.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 1.
Swedish-born Gunilla Theander Kester is an award-winning poet and the author of If I Were More Like Myself (The Writer’s Den, 2015). Her two poetry chapbooks: Mysteries I-XXIII (2011) and Time of Sand and Teeth (2009) were published by Finishing Line Press. She was co-editor with Gary Earl Ross of The Still Empty Chair: More Writings Inspired by Flight 3407 (2011) and The Empty Chair: Love and Loss in the Wake of Flight 3407 (2010). Dr. Kester has published many poems in Swedish anthologies and magazines, including Bonniers Litterära Magasin. Her work has or will be published in American Journal of Poetry, Great Lakes Review, Pendemics, I-70 Review, Slipstream, and Trampoline. She lives near Buffalo, NY where she teaches classical guitar.
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