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Malaika
King Albrecht’s poems have recently been or are forthcoming
in several literary magazines and anthologies, such as
Kakalak: an Anthology of Carolina Poets, The Pedestal
Magazine, Shampoo, Mannequin Envy, and Letters to the
World:Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv. She has taught
creative writing to sexual abuse/assault survivors and to
addicts and alcoholics in therapy groups and also is a
volunteer poet in local schools and in a domestic violence
shelter in North Carolina.
In
Her Honor
for Doaa Khalil Aswad, murdered for marrying outside of
her religion
stone
stone
what use
are you
now
not a home
of her own
not a road
away from here
not even a wall
stone
bloody
stone
heavier
than a child
thrown
at the lone woman
circled
by brothers,
uncles, killed by
her father
Late Night News
We’re sleeping. You don’t (won’t) wake up.
Someone is calling my name. Am I awake?
Someone is calling me
names. We have too many names
and some we won’t answer to. We
have much to answer for.
The world is asleep. How else
to explain what is happening? The world
sleeps loudly. Like a baby. Someone else’s baby
on the page, the TV screen, the ground.
There are many children. The long hallway, darker
than night, is growing longer, is growing more doors
which means more choices, which means I stand
in front of the many doors. Which door,
which child?
The toddler reaches for his father’s
casket. The soldier’s face is burned
into an earless mask, his high school girlfriend,
his bride, her own face unreadable.
Someone jumps to trade one death for another.
This is how you escape a shooter in your school.
Mom, would you hide in a locker?
This place loses mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters,
sons and daughters. I don’t know where the bodies
come from or are going, spilling from beds,
from buildings, from every earthly opening.
Our footprints are everywhere, even the moon
and the sea’s floor. We have touched the world,
and we are bored. We’re in your home now,
reading your email and taking lint samples
from your socks, unfolding and folding your underwear.
The last hiding place of snow will not be here
for long. The polar bears are diving and diving and diving.
Where can we walk in this watery place? Each hurt person
is a stone in our pockets. We are all wounded, trying
to stay awake, treading water. Sing loudly, and
in between songs, hold the dying.
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