22
four poems by noura jaber
ache
do you
carrying the both of us
in your throat?
sometimes i swear i hear myself
in the bruised tenor
of your voice.
sometimes when we fight
i swear
i don’t know
which
is clawing their way
out your mouth.
TRAIN WRECK
April 2011:
The woman in the green sweater turned her head toward me
Slowly - as if her gaze could stall what was about to happen,
The catastrophe coiling in my tense posture.
I don't remember her face when she locked eyes with me
Only that her hair was brown.
She looked like someone watching a train wreck
Which is to say, in this version of the memory I am the train
And my body is the one that does the damage, collides
Headfirst with something more breakable than itself
Before it can stop.