I.

When I asked the man I love if there was water
in the south, he said no water—

but mourning his father, the mourners
were conceptual dancers, waving to grief.

II.

Sand like bleached saffron between us,
I watch him vanish into the earth, his father

like a newborn in his arms—
the white linen

his new skin.

I hold in my hand my other hand.
I tap the skin above my breasts

like some dry drum.

The wind hears nothing
but the coursing blood

of the son.

III.

In the south without water
the music of grief
like a greedy fish
swims in his ear.

What’s wrong with my small house? What’s wrong?
It has collapsed.

Women cluster,
sing the sun full
cycle. Like a rock dove,
their chorus rises.

You who are seabound, wearing what you must wear—
Your house is destroyed.

Someone has razed
his house, his house
which was his father.

By the life in my arms, I’ll build you another—
In the sky with a thousand rocks.

IV.

I do not see you when you climb down, in your two arms the body of your father. When you lift the skin off the ground, what do you see? What fabric is the bed of our fathers? In the words of women expert at making stones weep, the dead rest in a watery place. The minutes I am above ground and you below it are the ugliest of my life. Like the mourners I sway around a fixed point. When I see you again you are not wet, your arms are still your arms. The sea soaks only our fathers, I understand. I too am as dry as can be. Your mother refuses to leave before the sky itself is a dense shroud. You wait arched in the sun. Because I cannot touch you, I smell the insides of my hands. The smell is an egg, just cracked. Priests in saffron robes are dancing in my head. We learn to swim when we have to, this is what I’ve learned. Look how golden the ground. How loud the midday wind. How far the sea.

V.

Grief is an egg
at the bottom of the sea.

VI.

We live only three days, says the sheikh outside the tomb. On the first, we are born. (It is a warm noon for winter. Your cousins hand out plastic water bottles as we listen to the sheik. I want to give you mine.) On the second we die.

VII.

On the third we rise like rock doves from the ground.

Sara Elkamel is a poet and journalist living between Cairo and NYC. She holds an MA in arts journalism from Columbia University and an MFA in poetry from New York University. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Yale Review, MQR, Four Way Review, The Cincinnati Review, Poet Lore, Poetry London, Best New Poets 2020 and Best of the Net 2020, among others. She is the author of the chapbook Field of No Justice (African Poetry Book Fund & Akashic Books, 2021).

Roger Camp (Broken Glass, Charleston, IL, 2001) is the author of three photography books including the award winning Butterflies in Flight (Thames & Hudson, 2002) and Heat (Charta, Milano, 2008). His documentary photography has been awarded the prestigious Leica Medal of Photography. His photographs are represented by the Robin Rice Gallery, NYC.

This poem was originally published in Salt Hill 47.