“Graffiti” © Jamila Ouriour
The seasoning house
The seasoning house is percolating inside out,
Cadavers piling in closets telling stories
Each bone tells a story; each rib sieves a story,
Stories and stories and stories and stories and stories and
stories…
Nooked in dried lifeless cells;
The dead speak , you know?
Their voices quiver and sound distant winds on lonely hills
With one house standing in the face of the cyclone, turbulently simmering and percolating,
a cyclone on its own, with cadavers in closets,
telling stories, edgy-bladed stories;
hurtful and painful; yet, so vulnerable,
Spongy and gossamer-architectured cadaverous stories;
Did they decay, smell, darken , blow out and ooze in your body
farm closet?
Did the vultures, rats, flies and worms find them tasty?
Do we use them to fertilize our land and season our bread,
those stories of cadavers in closets in lonely houses on lonely
hills that percolate and simmer?
Did you steal pharaonic embalming secrets and buried them in
their finest garments and jewelry:
Smiles you drew on their cold lips,
Lips that told stories in seasoning houses on lonely hills with
simmering cadaverous in closets?
Jamila Ouriour is an American Arab who has resided in Massachusetts for nearly thirteen years. She participates in several open mic events and writers groups.
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