lime green leatherbound thing
to record myself in
body baking in wood chair
inside wood fence of backyard
skirt of teal cotton hiked
to my knees
legs spread to let in sun
breasts unbound
my lover’s wooden ring
around my finger

sweat from direct light
blankets nude shoulders
thighs hairy like porcupine
and exposed

every time i say i don’t need you;

we shouldn’t have
come here;

i lost too much in the course of this migration

i wake up again to
this nakedness

a single sacrament
against
nostalgia

© 2008 tahminah zaman

One Response to “saturday snapshot of me as /american/”

  1. sayantan mukhopadhya said

    It was a casual search for a awestuck poet. It’s an awesome piece and my fist treat from her. I am sure she is in the journey when one cannot express things in words but in the breathes in lights and in the somewhere unreachable.
    Will try to track her in her journey to and from known to unknown.

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