August
High heels roost
beside Mary Janes
I check to ensure
each has a mate
I dip hands in wool
scarves where birds
abandon fragrant
poison eggs...
I keep old dresses
company, this one
found Christmas
eve, fully lined.
In the highest place
silk suits hang
in plastic hostage
to weddings.
Climbing down,
I snag a nail,
its single eye
rusted open.
Safia Jama received a B.A. from Harvard College and has studied at the Art Students League of New York and the Slade School of Art. A Cave Canem fellow, she has received writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the New York Public Library. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Reverie, The New Sound, and the Cave Canem Anthology. She currently lives, writes, and paints in New York.
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