She looks at Me
By Adnan Adam Onart
through the eyes of a fish
tired but full of surprise
(because of seeing me?)
she opens her mouth and closes
to bubble out
through the lips once sensuous
a
good-bye
maybe
a
take-care
maybe
an
I-love-you-despite
maybe
I cup my hands,
bring my palms toward my chest
I recite forcefully:
three times
kulhullah
once
el-fatiha
as if to say
hold on
hold on
no rattle
no shaking of the body
no last attempt at a deep breath
a feeble final bubble
which I hope to be
I-forgive-you-too
Adnan Adam Onart lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Review, among others. His first poetry collection, The Passport You Asked For (The Aeolos Press, 2006), was published together with Kenneth Rosen’s Cyprus’s Bad Period. He earned the honorable mention of the 2007 New England Poetry Club Erika Mumford Prize. He is one of the winners of 2011 Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition in Cary, North Carolina. Adnan has been featured periodically on NPR’s On Being project during the months of Ramadan: www.onbeing.org/author/adnan-onart/