Jehan is one of the delights of running the Poetician gang. Even though she ran off and is now living between kabul and nine other locations, I still love her. And her big eyes. And blue shoes. And small poems that leave me wondering how she can say so much in three lines while I need to ramble for 6 pages.
From all over the ME, but specifically from Palestine, comes a girl with so much attention to the unsaid in our world, and for her efforts to read with us in different countries and for her shy smiles and straight bangs, I thank Jehan and hug her virtually.

SplitEnds
by Jehan Bseiso

Your last note said ‘his name is Adam, he does not remind me of you.’
Postcards and letters,
Some open, some lying with their face down on the kitchen table.

I unlearn reading.
Alphabetics can be such mathematics. And I was never good at counting.

Remember the woman in the tube who thought she was Um Kulthoum?

I never let my thoughts wander anymore, but they touch your face from time to time.
Memory, a vault that the mind can open only in dreams.

Accidental remembering, or not being able to forget her voice

thick, heavy: ‘Ya Habibi…’

I pin my hope down with a tack.
On the fridge, a photo of you with a big fish you caught.
You look small.

You were always a fan of the dramatic, avant-garde theatre, in the style of Gertrude Stein.
I prefer her quiet poetry.

This just one of the ways in which we didn’t meet. There are others.