Say sugar. Say lamplight.
Say heartbeat. Hush. Fire.
Glass. Firelight plays across
your face, gold skittering
past what we know to be
true. The press of cheekbone
to jaw, straight bridge of
nose. All those hard lines
but soft angles. Pretend
we do not hold each other
close to remember we are
alive. Pretend when we are
together we are not turning
away from our own hidden
shadows, locked tight
beneath our bodies.
Pretend our warmth
does not seep into the cracks
of the universe, setting us
on fire. We have turned over
too many stones looking
for ourselves. There is
no place left for us
to hide. Now, we press
ourselves together just
to remember what it
feels like to be whole.
You pry me open
with your thumbs. I hold
you like the sun, the star
so fragile it lights our
world. We undo
the golden threads of
the earth until they lay in
our palms, bright streaks
of possibility.
Sarah Fathima Mohammed is a Muslim-American emerging writer and high schooler from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the National Poetry Quarterly. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Canvas Literary Journal, Rattle, Girls Right the World, The Rising Phoenix Review, Apprentice Writer, The Heritage Review, and elsewhere. When she is not writing, she serves as managing editor for The Aurora Review, reads for Polyphony Lit, and enjoys archery.