Habibi by Andrea Festa

Seated in Sukhasana,
head over heart
heart over pelvis,
I lower my gaze
to my chest.
Large pores, nascent
stages of wrinkling,
span my cleavage.
Boldly on display, joining
blood blisters
and freckles
and fine baby hairs.
I’m proud of these marks.
My mom has them.
My aunt, too, who bronzes
better than all the
women in this family.
Matriarch of the Decker women
Lineage. Gypsies and thieves.
Allegedly.

Hands folded in Anjali Mudra,
I lift my chin in sun salutation.
Ask, “Who were those Lebanese
women before me?” who
make up my composite parts.
Real, pioneer women,
babies at their hips and breasts.
Long, crooked noses cast down
on men there solely for utility.
Situs talking shit over
kibbeh nayyeh.
Lean hands dipping Syrian bread,
Molding girls into sharp, sensitive
women.
Like my mother
and me
and the child that won’t follow.

About the Poet:

Andrea Festa is a paralegal by day/writer by night residing in Philadelphia. A graduate of the University of the Arts with a BFA in screenwriting, prose poetry is her forte. She is the recipient of the Dr. Frederick P. Cornell Award for Excellence in Writing (2011), the Writing for Film and Television Faculty Award for Excellence (2011), The Giulio & Carina Novelli Memorial Award for Excellence in Liberal Arts (2011), and The University of the Arts Poetry Award (2011). She has not been published and hopes to make writing, rather than 9 to 5 office drudgery, her full-time profession.