issue 2
Koukash Review
2023
Among the politic I am an easy target
With children on my hip, father on my back,
my husband’s name the only proof of success
I the poet a woman
begging in the streets for ears dipped in honey
Likes Caesars own Cinna cut & blackened for conspiracies
inherited by proximity
Back to the garden its mass exodus of x-tin knowledge
My words heralded only in tandem
of tragedy or man’s fleeting mercy
Have you ever encountered
the devil eating with his left hand a naked stake
unmarked by love or light
Ignited by Jupiter’s own jealousy
This cigarette
Is where
I draw
my last breath
this funeral pyre a pulpit
holds
free verse:
lo & behold heaven lies and truth claims the scorched earth
under my escaped feet
Yasmine Rukia
Yasmine Rukia is a Lebanese-Appalachian American lyricist, fictionist and performing poetess living in-between hyphens, genres and political streams of consciousness. She was born with an AK for a mouth, as a survivor, her shots examining the nexus of being, the thrive and jive of arab america, islam and womxnhood can be found in Hadah Baladuna: Voices of Arab Detroit Anthology (Wayne State Press 2022), AAWW The Margins, The Black Warrior Review, BAHR, Mizna, The Belt, Khaber Keslan, Jaffat Al-Aqlam, The Gordon Square Review, Mizna, PAPERMAG, internationally and elsewhere.