• Poetry
  • Fiction
  • Flash Fiction
  • Nonfiction
  • Book Reviews
  • Translations
  • About
  • Awards
  • Submissions
  • Buy LAR
  • Poetry
  • Fiction
  • Flash Fiction
  • Nonfiction
  • Book Reviews
  • Translations
  • About
  • Awards
  • Submissions
  • Buy LAR

August by Sara Elkamel


for Cairo

……

Because I don’t want to indict my memory, I indict August. I accuse it of opening the door to the dream as I dreamed it. I was indifferent to the heat. Hungered for your touch like salt. Sometimes I’d wait hours. Days. August made you restless. You paced around the house, closed as many doors as you could. I have no idea, anymore, what instinct is. Those nights it felt it was not wanting, at all, to leave. And leave to go where? They had moved the trees elsewhere, moved the City of the Dead, built prisons instead of gardens and poisoned the dogs. It wasn’t all bad. Your dad called weekly to ask if you had enough honey, wanted more mangoes. The houseplants were green without water. The cats entertained themselves. I started pacing too, killed time painting blue lines around my eyes. Even learned to sing. You asked me to sing louder, looking straight at me. And you slipped into my hands like water. We built a monument like no other. It was a good city, August. Before you’re here all the fucking time, before I have nowhere else to go, before what happened to the street? Before what street? The way I remember it, I left a pillow of hair on the sheets. I watched as you slept, mouth open, too great a distance from me. I kissed the abscess on the kitten’s lips. I ate the dream for breakfast; left the house a living thing. And yes by that I mean slowly dying.

 


Sara Elkamel is a poet and journalist living between Cairo and NYC. Currently an MFA candidate in poetry at New York University, Elkamel has had poems appear in The Common, Michigan Quarterly Review, Four Way Review, The Adroit Journal, Memorious, Best New Poets 2020, and other publications.



Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Heaven by Mir Arif
  • Give by Ma Yan Translated by Winnie Zeng
  • Lubbock Spring by Emma Aylor
  • Intermezzos Along the Road Home by Kathryn Petruccelli
  • A Review and an Interview of Lawrence Raab’s April at the Ruins

Recent Comments

  • Judith Fodor on Three Poems by David Keplinger
  • Marietta Brill on 2 Poems by Leah Umansky

Categories

  • Award Winners
  • Blooming Moons
  • Book Reviews
  • Fiction
  • Flash Fiction
  • Interviews
  • LAR Online
  • Nonfiction
  • Poetry
  • Translations
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Recent Posts

  • Heaven by Mir Arif
  • Give by Ma Yan Translated by Winnie Zeng
  • Lubbock Spring by Emma Aylor
  • Intermezzos Along the Road Home by Kathryn Petruccelli
  • A Review and an Interview of Lawrence Raab’s April at the Ruins
© 2014 Los Angeles Review. All Rights Reserved. Design and Developed by NJSCreative Inspired by Dessign.net