Rewa Z is one of the favorite writers and indeed, women, I have had the pleasure of meeting and hearing the past couple of years. An unwavering poetician, a rock solid lady, and a strong voice. Enjoy. Her bio is under the page, Poets.

Bassara:

“she who sees”

Comes from the arms of faraway sands

her hands stains of carob trees

she dances her bare feet like jewels, liberated

by the bands of khelkhal around her ankles.

She follows to where I don’t tell her I am going

and the blue crashes against the rocks underneath

the concrete underneath our feet. She wants to read my palms,

hers engraved with maps of henna and I

at home at last, to last.

She draws me in as she massages sadaf

against her fingers as if the lines in my skin

aren’t telling enough. And her hair is henna and her eyes henna

and her skin is henna-hued as she converts the sun into amber

eyelids and the bronze of her palms and the shape

of her mouth as she reads my hand,

only to tell me I have so much leaving.