issue 1
Koukash Review
2022
Seventeen
Rewa Zeinati
When he felt that he fell
in love again, years and years
later, he began to listen
to ancient love songs in front
of his wife who turned
a deaf ear and continued
to chop the picked parsley leaves,
considering what else she could
do with such a sharp knife.
He listened closely to the words
of Abdel Halim and dreamed about
the impossible girl in the Cup Reader
whose wild gypsy hair traveled everywhere.
Remembered himself at seventeen
then looked at his watch.
Saw his seventy-something-year-old
hands and began to cough.
Took comfort in recalling
that he hardly drank, never smoked,
took care of health and wealth
then he turned up the volume
and began to sing.
Rewa Zeinati
Recipient of the 2020 Edward Stanley Award for Poetry, Rewa Zeinati is the author of the poetry chapbook, Bullets & Orchids, and nonfiction book Nietzsche’s Camel Must Die. She is the founder and editor of Sukoon magazine (first edition - 2013). Her poems and essays are published in various national and international journals and anthologies. In the last decade alone, she’s moved ten times in six cities and three countries and now considers Metro Detroit her new home.