Self-Portrait With Anxiety
by Sara Elkamel
Even the fruit that does not rot
grows soft, russet in my hands.
Someone has carved both palms
with deltas; one close-lipped,
one gaping like a door.
Everywhere I go I find myself
ready to leave. Temperamental
as fruit. My left delta tipping
into rotting seas. No wonder
I came here yellow, already dying,
the new blood eating itself.
You can still see it; ring of rot
around each iris. This heart’s
jaundice. This desire a groaning,
laggard door. This wanting to leave.
Sara Elkamel is a poet and journalist living between her hometown, Cairo, and New York City. She holds an MA in arts journalism from Columbia University and is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at New York University. Elkamel's poems have appeared in The Common, Michigan Quarterly Review, Four Way Review, The Boiler, Memorious, wildness, and as part of the anthologies Best New Poets 2020, Best of the Net 2020, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 3: Halal If You Hear Me, and 20.35 Africa: Vol. 2, among other publications. She was named a 2020 Gregory Djanikian Scholar by The Adroit Journal, and a finalist in Narrative Magazine's 30 Below Contest in the same year. Elkamel’s debut chapbook “Field of No Justice” will be published by the African Poetry Book Fund & Akashic Books in 2021.