by Sofia Samatar
(USA)

When the woman with tired eyes
stares too long at the car­pet,
the cof­fee boils over
and hiss­es on the coals.
Her hand in the gloom
moves slow­ly as a storm­cloud
drift­ing over the vio­lence of the sea.

The king sleeps in the bed.
Out­side, beyond the cur­tains,
Dam­as­cus ros­es fat­ten in the sun.
In the bot­tom of the cof­fee pot
a tiny ship cir­cles,
the sailors mak­ing round mouths of woe.

The cap­tain, in his cab­in,
scrawls the last notes in his log,
and tucks his pen into his sash beside his dag­ger.
He knows that the sea is boil­ing,
that the sky is as black as cof­fee,
and that this will be his last night on earth.

Sofia Samatar is a fan­ta­sy writer, poet, and crit­ic, and a PhD can­di­date in African Lan­guages and Lit­er­a­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son. Her poet­ry has appeared in a num­ber of places, includ­ing Stone Telling, Gob­lin Fruit, Strange Hori­zons and Bull Spec. Her debut nov­el, A Stranger in Olon­dria, is forth­com­ing from Small Beer Press in 2013.

Filed under: Jabberwocky 15