Assistant Editor Lily Davenport: In this oblique, unsettling poem, Fatma Omar outlines the dynamics between a mother, father, and child as the three of them orbit the household’s “wax room.” We’re positioned over the child’s shoulder, witnessing a partial answer to a mystery whose solution the speaker seeks and fears in equal measure.
Listen to Fatma Omar read “(perhaps?)”:
(perhaps?)
My mother used to lock herself in the wax room
Drip drip drip you’d hear
Run down the wooden furniture
In the wax room, where mother would be
Father would guard the door, saying
Don’t go in there, your mother is busy
She will be out soon
But he left his post (station?) once
And a peek I got into the wax room, where mother was
Drip drip drip I saw
Run down
Fatma Omar was born in Khartoum, Sudan and moved to Brooklyn in 2002 with her parents. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English and a concentration in creative writing. Her poem “The Summer Thief” was published in Outrageous Fortune.
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