I love women dearly
by Isha Camara
Arrogant bitches who can hear the dead.
Barwench bad, brutal and bare,
burgundy-bitten women.
Cotton-mouth and cherry-cheeked.
Chili peppers held under the tongue for 3 days, 3 nights.
Dowry-bought women. Dog-face,
drag-face, daddy’s-face girls, pretty
enough. Eager and
fast women. Fat and
fattened women. All
horse-faced beauties and
hellfire women,
Hot and humid women.
Hummingbird women too fast to cage.
Hustling women who howl, who hunt,
illuminate like a pulse in a coyote’s jaw.
Jerk-sauce at the corner of the mouth.
Jin-forgiving women, jin who are kind to women.
Jins greeted by
knives under the pillow.
Left him after the first or the seventh time.
Leave, leave and do not return.
Milk carton women.
Miss mamas misses home and
miss girl grown too soon.
Nail design and jemstone.
Odd, odd women.
Open-mouth to bite the hand that tries to feed or beat or kill.
Pink-polish women for pink wounds.
Pageant of failures.
Power that pickles in a jar.
Praise-built women.
Queen of swamp waters and what tried to sink us.
Resting-bitch face, rest-easy, rest-well.
Rest rest rest for those of us who can’t
rest.
Stillborn girls who didn’t listen to tradition:
say alhamdulillah, say mashallah.
Sniff the ground in search for honor,
scent the stones,
smell the after-lightening,
scent the rivers as ours.
Spare-candy-in-my-purse-, nicknamed and
trademarked sweet women.
That take the steering wheel in their own hands,
that pick up other women from the bus stops.
Those who are only as good as they are stolen,
that don’t
unfold themselves till lock door,
until they lay their heads.
“Where’s your jacket, baby” women.
Wench or witch-made women.
Women who sleep like they’re on the run.
Women that thunder together, damp and unashamed.
Women that fuck shame.
Women that got something to lose and let it be lost.
We need no more from this life.
We return empty handed.
Isha Camara is a poet, visual and makeup artist hailing from South Minneapolis and recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a OMAI First Wave alumna. She’s been writing and performing poetry since the age of thirteen and moves with the intention to always sharpen her blade.Most subjects she writes about circle thoughts and experiences of her identity as a Black Muslim woman and the ways in which she navigates in America; and in turn understanding how America responds back to her. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Southeast Review, The Boston Review, Wisconsin Life and Canvas Literary Journal. Isha has performed for the Madison Public Library, Walker Art Center and MMoCA.
Isha’s purpose is to give a narrative that creates conversations suppled with empathy, driven with tenderness.
Isha’s purpose is to give a narrative that creates conversations suppled with empathy, driven with tenderness.