The Pocket by Amir Rabiyah

 

“A poem is a small or large machine made of words.”
William Carlos Williams


 

S/he opens the shutters.  S/he must check on the runway.  S/he must make sure
the city is still in order. Airport lights gleam through the humidity like the slicked
teeth of a shelter dog.  All of them wait for the war to start again. Many say s/he is
lucky, s/he gets to go back to America in a few weeks. The landing strip awaits its
destiny.   Two planes:  one departing, one leaving, growl & nearly collide.   S/he
stands facing the edge of fire,  knowing that  s/he exists in a  pocket of space
between two machines: somewhere between home & exile.





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Contributor Notes

Amir Rabiyah is a two-spirit writer currently living in San Diego, California. Amir has been published in Mizna, Left Turn Magazine, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality, Troubling the Line: Trans and Gender Queer Poetry and Poetics and more. Amir is currently co-editing the anthology "Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices" due out for publication later this year.