Mona Arshi Poems

i.
Entirely occupied. A million throats
migrate towards my ribs,
secrete syllables in my chest.
...

Old man Harvey, with his thick specs and polished shoes
shouting trespassers, yet offering us a penny for collecting
his waspy pears.
...

My daughters have lost
two hundred and thirty-six teeth
and counting.
They possess so many skills: they can
...

The smallest human bone in the ear
weighs no more than a grain of rice.

She keeps thinking it means something
but probably is nothing.
...

Not even our eyes are our own . . .

- Frederico Garcia Lorca, The House of Bernarda Alba
I want to tune in to the surface, beside the mayfly
listen to how she holds her decorum on the skin of the pond.
...

How unstable and old he is now.
Lion, like God, has snacks sent up

by means of a pulley. Although
you can never master the deep language
...