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When I’m Wordless
Mona Zahra Attamimi (University of Sydney, Australia)

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I grab my grandfather’s Bedouin sword and whack a coconut in half,
I row out towards the Pacific Ocean and scream as loud as a tortured witch,
I sink to the bottom of the sea and let my toes commune with anemones,
I swell up at the neck, and my cheeks tremble like an earthquake,
I wake up at night and mouth the botanical names of plants in my garden,
I dish up nasi goreng and serve it on a bed of sliced cucumber,
I eat a bowl of noodles and meatballs
And burn my tongue on a green chili,
I picture a house on a road with a sad and unpronounceable street name,
I strain my voice whispering my city of birth in Sanskrit,
And hum Nina Simone’s I wish I knew how
it would feel to be free,

and sing
my father’s Ambonese lullaby
                before I lose sight of what I had to say.

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Mona Zahra Attamimi is Arab-Indonesian. She lived in Washington DC and Manila before settling in Sydney at age nine. She is completing her Masters of Letters in Creative Writing at the University of Sydney. Her poems have appeared in Meanjin, Southerly and Mascara Literary Review, and forthcoming in The Asian-Australian Anthology.

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