Déjà vu in the First Degree
I heard once that the world
will end like
the count
on a small hand
before a wish was squeezed
between candles. I kept spells
on my middle finger,
the ticking
of a cheap watch
tucked itself in my wrist
before the battery
wound down.
The clock’s heartbeat gave
me heartburn, stomach acids sloshed
like a gulp of fizzed fireworks
as gravity un-gripped my heels.
I collected sunsets
by heating up
my speckled breath,
glass skies shielded by fluffy hope.
My lungs melted,
old fumes fingered
my nostrils as a tease beneath clouds
that could never hold rain again.
I heard once that the world
will end,
like rings sketched as timers
inside tree trunks, slaughters
dripped dry when live-man killers
finally learned to butch
the hungry boys
who once kept my face
carved,
chop-chopping
the angry
man goes. ...
-->
Lana I. Ghannam is currently an MFA Candidate in Poetry at the University of Central Florida where she also serves as both a Teaching and Editorial Assistant for The Florida Review, UCF’s national literary magazine. She is a first-generation Palestinian-American. Six months ago she married a Southern man flowing with generations of Kentucky blood. Her work has recently appeared in The Holler Box and The Cape Rock.
