The Battle of the Camel

By SARA ELKAMEL

Camels on the moon art painting

Camels on the Moon, 2021, Mixed media and collage on cardboard. Artwork by Sara Elkamel.

 

Cairo, Egypt

When you’re not looking
I try on your big brown shoes,

pick a spot to run to, practice ducking
from winged pellets on the street—

but the hardwood floors mock me
and creak. Say I was with you,

on a journey to a holy place,
and if we squint we see heaven

            full of light that is disappearing—

Do we forget their prison
used to be a garden?

You feed me dust when I moan
for the dead boys in the garden.

            O, the man! O, the mountain!
O, the young gods of our garden!

The land, the bullet-birds, the navel
            —all full of light that is disappearing.

The young gods walk ahead, as usual.
The camels we thought were dancers
           
            trample my awful song, as usual—

            and in the end we die
and we do not die.

 

Sara Elkamel is an Egyptian poet and journalist living between her hometown, Cairo, and New York City. She holds an MA in arts journalism from Columbia University, and is an MFA candidate in poetry at New York University. Elkamel’s poems have appeared in The Common, Michigan Quarterly Review, Four Way Review, The Los Angeles Review, Memorious, wildness, and as part of the anthologies Best New Poets and Best of the Net, among other publications. She was named a 2020 Gregory Djanikian Scholar by The Adroit Journal, and a finalist in Narrative Magazine‘s 30 Below Contest in the same year. She is the author of the chapbook Field of No Justice (African Poetry Book Fund & Akashic Books, 2021).

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

The Battle of the Camel

Related Posts

Farewell to Pictou County, N.S.

COURTNEY BUDER
I thought it was wonderful. I remember standing in the middle of the street, the wind tearing straight through me. I watched my red hat get sucked up and away into the grey, watched trees flail, calm as a clam, as a strange and lonely little girl transfixed, like watching a snow globe from the inside.

Two Poems by Hendri Yulius Wijaya

HENDRI YULIUS WIJAYA
time and again his math teacher grounded him in the courtyard to lower / the level of his sissyness. the head sister chanted his name in prayer to thwart // him from playing too frequently with girl classmates. long before he’s enamored with the word / feminist