Smile & Nod
- Smile & Nod
Rami Karim, poem
Warm diesel in the airBraiding through windowsIn a white DatsunMy illiterate grandfather recites poetryI ask permission to forgetAt the grocery storeThe name of my great uncleThe cereal I'm allergic to
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Will work for feelingOK write a think piece on whateverYou want reallyBeing somethingOr other in AmericaToday is a real drag
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Email me love lettersCc: elephantI'm flattered, blushingThe room is getting smallerI send a kissy heart emoji
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I love the TSAReally doI'll make small talk on an airplaneI'll ask for wine toDistinguish myself [End Page 663]
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Gift-wrap fatigueI want you to like meMold my face into a good timeA July 4th barbecueMove away from me slowlyOn an empty busIf you don't look upI won't notice
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Looking to treat anxietyAs it relates to photo captionsI want to give everything creditThere are only so many wordsWhen you look at my pageI want you to think I'm cool butAlso quiet and sensitive
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The sky of East Los AngelesIn the MediterraneanA shared climateMakes life easier to describeIn audible segmentsThirty minutes at a time
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When I tell a story with words youDon't understand it grips youA humble missionaryI write a parable in EnglishWant to use a metaphor thoughIn this body you sayI am too abstract [End Page 664]
rami karim is a writer from Los Angeles by way of Beirut. He is the author of Smith & Nod, and his work has appeared in Halal If You Hear Me: An Anthology of Queer and Nonbinary Muslim Writers, the Brooklyn Review, Apogee, Makhzin, The Margins, and Tagvverk, among others. He is a Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers' Workshop, a lecturer at the City University of New York, and a 2018 artist-in-residence at Cité internationale des arts in Paris.
