Ode To Eve
I still recall the last time I spoke to an alien, or perhaps merely imagined it
to be so. It happened immediately after the first drops of blood—later known as menstruation—
appeared. I curled up in a corner, watching the wall where it walked in transparent
attire, playing cards next to a widow spider. I don’t know if it was truly a widow, but
perhaps my mood at the time made me assume it.
From that moment, I imagined Eve dreaming of the respectable apple. Imagined her
exhausted, suffering the cycle. Imagined her startled by the fact of her femaleness. I
saw her in my mind attempting to flee the obsessive-compulsive disorder, the doubt,
and the petty anxieties. Imagining herself pregnant, her belly immense, and her legs
swollen from fluid retention. I pictured her with one eye open and one eye closed, like
a resting wolf.
Then the alien suddenly stung me; I opened my eyes and found it wearing Adam’s
mask, recounting the familiar story from the perspective of the victim who fell into
the trap of temptation.
No Bigger Than a Chickpea
Do you remember?
When I knelt before you, crying?
When you smiled at me and explained
Why did a piece of my body have to be cut off?
Do you remember?
You said,
“You won’t feel a thing.
It’s no bigger than a chickpea.”
My mother was boiling mint leaves.
I swear I felt the pot weeping.
Every leaf of mint seemed to ache,
As if preparing for a funeral.
You wore a loose, colorful galabiya.
You were laughing,
Genuinely happy, waiting for the line of girls—
So you could circumcise them.
It was the first time I heard the word.
I thought it was something
Like trimming your nails.
And I thought
You were like the school nurse.
We were laughing so hard,
Chasing one another,
Waiting for our turn.
The mother of each girl
Whispered to her:
“Once they cut that piece from you,
You’ll be a good girl.”
Do you remember?
Do you remember how all the girls begged you
When you pulled out the blade?
We thought it was a joke.
We thought it was a game.
But we never knew
We were part of it.
Thus Spoke the Orange Tree
Yesterday I met an orange tree and asked it, “Tell me, how we fold Time?”
To be born now, a thousand years old. To know how to understand man, beast, bird,
insect, flower, and machine. How to walk naked on my tiptoes in a wintry open space,
without fearing the cold. To sing at the top of my lungs because (am still breathing)
Without fearing the sirens or the police.
Yesterday I met a pregnant orange tree and whispered in her acrobatic ear, “How do you
become an orange tree, then give birth to a moon? How do the jokes melt in your mouth
like water with honey? Did you fall for an angel? Or did you read a poem of light? Do
you wear crystal balls like cosmic spectacles?”
Yesterday I shed my skin, bone, and flesh like a temporary coat I no longer needed.
Yesterday I broke free of it. Broke free of me. And raced at full speed to catch a star that
accidentally fell from a baby’s eye. I called out to myself with a thousand foreign tongues,
and I prayed. And I sighed. And melted, once more, into the drink of Love.
Amirah Al Wassif is an an award-winning poet, a human rights activist, animal activist, an environmental activist and translator with several publications to her name. Her poetry collection, For Those Who Don’t Know Chocolate, was published in February 2019 by Poetic Justice Books & Arts. This was followed by the illustrated children’s book, The Cocoa Boy and Other Stories, in February 2020. Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company released her poetry collection, How to Bury a Curious Girl, in 2022. Most recently, her latest collection, The Rules of Blind Obedience, was published in December 2024. Amirah’s work has appeared in numerous print and online publications, including South Florida Poetry, Birmingham Arts Journal, Hawaii Review, The Meniscus, Chiron Review, The Hunger, Writers Resist, Right Now, Reckoning, New Welsh Review, and Event Magazine, among others. She has a page on Facebook.
Art: “Maelstrom”, a visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2025. Robert is the EIC/publisher of Ice Floe Press, a writer, visual artist and curator of New Works December. I.G.: icefloe22, r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, Bluesky: @rfredekenter.bsky.social
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