Jupiter’s Storm

Poem
Written By Majda Gama

We will leave the sea when we’ve tasted enough salt.

No mosques nearby to keep time, only waves woven into waves 

& a telescope angled to catch Jupiter’s storming 

eye. I bare my feet like I do in America, if there are scorpions 

they nap next door, nested in the roots of the palms 

lining my cousins’ house. The lizards on the wall are asleep. 


From the rooftop our horizon reaches no land, 

but every step toward the firmament moves me 

above the walls & beyond the gates where the wind 

will touch every part of me. The sun tricks the distance. 

A mirage of stucco, & my male cousins 

emerge from their veined, marble home to play.


Could I let one of them take me as a bride?

Years ago, one took me for a ride on his motorbike;

outside the beach gates we clung to hot metal

legs singed by burnt air, we spun out  & pinned 

ourselves. The telescope turns in my hand, 

one cousin struts, caressed by my gaze, & I do. I do.


Majda Gama

Majda Gama is a Beirut born, Saudi-American poet based in the Washington DC area where she has roots as a DJ and activist. Her poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Cordite, GMR Online, Nimrod, The Normal School, RHINO, Room, and Slice. Poetry is forthcoming from Hobb, an anthology of Arab writing edited by Hala Alyan and Zeina Hashem Beck. Majda is a Pushcart, Best New Poets, Best of the Net nominee, and a finalist in the Hayden’s Ferry Review inaugural Poetry Prize. Her debut manuscript was a 2020 New Issues Poetry Prize finalist. Majda most recently served as a poetry editor at Tinderbox Poetry Journal.

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