Poem of the Week: Samiya Bashir

                

Manistee Lights

Brother I don't either understand this

skipscrapple world that is--these

slick bubble cars zip feverish down

paved rushes of notcorn of notbeets

of notcabbage and the land and the land--

You should know, man, nothing

grows down here anymore except

walloped wishes and their gouged out

oil cans. Where bloodroot might span our

distance sit these bars land mined in the sand

lit from the inside eye these cages they twist us

they tornado us. No.

I don't understand. Not those grates

not the grackles circling overblind

all perched so close to the beach there

we could smell winter freeze. In spring

did the wind bring the scent of smelt?

Remember? Even strike years mother

found smelt by the fingery bagful

and fried them almost whole.

It was almost enough.

 

-Samiya Bashir

Used by permission.

Originally published in Taos Journal of Poetry and Art. 

 

Samiya Bashir's second book of poems, Gospel, was a finalist for both the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and along with her first collection, Where the Apple Falls, the Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry has most recently appeared in Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crab Orchard Review, Cura, The Rumpus, and Encyclopedia Vol. 2 F-K, and was recently honored by the Aquarius Press Legacy Award and two Hopwood Awards from the University of Michigan. An Ann Arbor, Michigan native and recent NEA Writer in-Residence at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts,

Samiya teaches creative writing at Reed College.

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