issue 2
Koukash Review
2023
In front of the red evening sun
You confess you are not okay.
I spoke to your father last night.
Over the phone, I listened to him
Watching Jeopardy. 86-year-old Baba
In the hospital for a month now.
He only retired last year, a professor, and this
Is how his body thanks him.
He tells me that “Life
Is just a high class form of Jeopardy.”
I write this down.
He says he is now on a “perpetual sabbatical.”
I write it down.
This is how he thinks of his time.
“A sabbatical being a pause, rather than
Retirement, being an end.”
He’s taken me in as a daughter
In ways my father cannot.
You press the crosswalk button
With your elbow. Your silhouette
Leaves the sidewalk.
I try to keep up.
The man who waxes poetic,
Who breathes philosophy,
“Oh, double jeopardy,” and
Then static.
Forgets I’m on the phone.
What he had to say about this global crisis:
“We are living in an interesting time.
The gift of silence to surprise us all.”
I tell you it’s okay to not be okay.
The land claims the sun. The sky
Holds the night. At home
You feed Cora a bite of watermelon.
She barks as another dog passes the window.
Holly Mason Badra
Holly Mason Badra received her MFA in Poetry from George Mason University where she is currently associate director of the Women and Gender Studies program. Her poetry, essays, reviews, and interviews appear in The Rumpus, The Adroit Journal, SWWIM, Rabbit Catastrophe Review, The Northern Virginia Review, Foothill Poetry Journal, UA Poetry Center Blog, CALYX, So to Speak, and elsewhere. She has been a panelist for OutWrite, RAWIFest, and DC's Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here events as a Kurdish-American poet. Holly is currently on the staff of Poetry Daily and lives in Northern Virginia with her wife and dog.