Fatimah Asghar is almost always in-between two places, experimenting with words to play with traditional storytelling. Currently, her heart is in Cambridge with her sisters while her body is in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where she just graduated from Brown University and is working on writing and research. She is an amateur photographer, spoken word poet, painter, actress, and writer.   She majored in Africana Studies and International Relations and worked on a Mellon Mays project studying artistic expression and in conflict regions. She was a part of Brown’s WORD!, and the 2011 CUPSI team which won the “Pushing the Art Forward” award.  

Four Poems (January 20, 2012. Issue 34.)

A Guide to Marriage

Watch the way the spoon imposes its shadow on the bowl. The silent way it breathes. It wasn't her soup, or the bustling around the kitchen. Rather, this is the image that was fallen in love with: the shadow, the chipped bowl on the wooden table, the looming position of the breadbasket. Above all: the quiet. The still. The home: lopsided under their feet as they balance themselves together in this wood, avoiding each other's gazes.

The Way Politeness Wears

Later, when they question, tell them.

Tell them I bit back my tongue, not because I didn’t know how to raise my voice but because I wouldn’t. Tell them I learned the meaning of girl when I was in an old white plantation house, in the new South, against a platter of corn and pies. Tell them I learned it when I carried out dishes to men who sat, sputtering opinions of supreme court judges and the half black half white running for president an the former wife-lady opposing him. Tell them I learned the weight of its meaning as I balanced my feet between the curves of plates and salad forks. Tell them I heard its chains clinking, pushing into my tongue along with thick cornbread words like sweetie, don’t worry your pretty little face. Let me explain it to you, honey. Of course we wouldn’t expect a girl to know that, doll. Later, when they ask why I did not speak, tell them I fell silent sitting at a wooden dining table, in a boat of boys, a sea of laughter churning my stomach. Tell them I the back and forth sway of their conversation sickened me, the loud waves that slapped the table when they spoke, no care for the froth left in their wake. Tell them I bit my tongue until I tasted copper, that even with red spit I held my head high. Tell them I smiled politely in someone else’s home. Tell them I wore my skin proudly. Tell them it burned against my yellow dress. Tell them I was beautiful. Tell them I sat still and drank my own blood while everyone else drank wine. Tell them I smiled. Tell them I learned the meaning of girl here, brown girl in a white plantation house, that I let it weigh down my tongue, hammering it to silence.

Apple peeling.

The earth gives forth wheelbarrows of gifts that I bake and spice. I slice off their skins frantically, no care for their exposed insides wheezing on my countertop. On one, I slice my finger, watch my exposed blood cough into a droplet before it cries down my hand. Later, friends gather around and marvel at the flaked crust spice apples in their plates. I smile, do not tell them my blood has gone into this meal. The soil. The earth's fingers, letting them fall into my basket.

Falling into flight

And really, the point I’m tryin to make ‘bout these birds is, they don’t know what the fuck they’re doin’.

No, no, follow me on this one.

They don’t know what the fuck they doin’. They ain’t got no idea. You ever watched a bird fly? Seriously, for a long time, not just casually looked up and see them dart around? Its like it confuses isself into motion. Like everytime they try they learning it again, for the first time. Like they inventin’ the wheel again or somethin. I mean it- watch ‘em-

See that one? Its falling into flight. Accidentally. Its fallin and fallin and then at the last minute it remembers how to use its wings. Like a last resort, when Goddamn man, those things take up half its body! And that’s what I’m sayin man, that’s the point I’ve been makin, is those birds, they jus don’t know how to use the air properly.

Not like I’m saying we do at all. The land I mean. We don’t got no wings you stupid fuck. But we got these legs man. I’m just sayin we don’t either. Well what I mean is, well what I’m tryin to say….

What I mean is, what the fuck. I’m just a person. I don’t got no fuckin idea.