Or Didn’t You Know It’s In That Opening And Closing That We Exist?

At first sight, you might think we’re these uprooted trees facing each other on that arched
door, without touching, suspended, in stasis, our dreams unraveling a gilded ribbon
around the branches, reaching out deep into our exposed verdigris roots. Notice the
double doorknob? It only opens when we turn the latch from the inside at the same time,
at the same rhythm. At first sight, that engraved wooden door might make you think of a
tombstone for an old couple sleeping in separate rooms. When we both turn the latch, it’s
in that opening and closing that we exist, spinning on wheels under the triple moon
crescent. For an instant, you might hear the fluttering of wings as we rise through
spiraling staircases to heights never reached in our dreams.

 

 

Hedy Habra’s third poetry collection, The Taste of the Earth, is forthcoming from Press 53 (2019). She has authored Under Brushstrokes, finalist for the USA Best Book Award and the International Poetry Book Award, and Tea in Heliopolis, winner of the USA Best Book Award and finalist for the International Poetry Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. A recipient of the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Awards, she was a fourteen-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her work appears in Cimarron Review, Bitter Oleander, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Drunken Boat, Gargoyle, Nimrod, Mizna, Poet Lore, and Verse Daily. Her website is hedyhabra.com