Shahilla Shariff | Mediterranean Poetry

Shahilla Shariff is the author of a collection of poetry, Life Lines (Proverse Hong Kong, 2012). Her poetry has been featured in various anthologies and journals, including most recently (2020) in Columbia Journal of Literature and Art, World Literature Today, Literary Review of Canada, American Writers Review’s Art in the Time of Covid-19 and (2021) in Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine (Issue 58, upcoming).

Shahilla Shariff is a Canadian living in Hong Kong.

Only A Few Words Are Left

long ago I learned Arabic

only a few words are left

hawa bahr samar

indolent breeze

grainy wild figs

salt-studded sand not-so-distant sea

evening’s blue-black tattoo

crushed pomegranates a bowl of roses

loosening at midnight a chipped glass pitcher

half-filled cold kirkadeh carrying night

Khamsa

Five euros –
the Senegalese woman
on a beachfront
slips a bracelet
on me.

Take my hand

La vie est très dure ici
she confides
shimmying
to the live band.

Amulet
mystery hand
your five fingers
point to a safety
far from life’s
intentions.

Five for five
khamsa for khamsa.

Take my hand

The music stops
concrete retreats
in the fury of rain.

She is done bargaining
the lady of trinkets
and shipwrecks
with her cargo
of misplaced hands.