Jessica Abughattas

Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Arab Girl 



​1.
She doesn’t read the Atlantic
nor does she orgasm.



2.
She dances, sucking her belly toward her spine.
Black vines
             sway to the mumble of a lute,
                          descend the trellis of her
                                             sweep bare feet. 



3.
Princess Jasmine
           Gigi Hadid
Shakira
​           Sabah 



4.
Why do you prefer golden birds?
Have you seen the brown-necked raven
who builds home inside a bomb shelter ?
The laughing dove who nests in olive trees ? 



5.
I am given the name of an American cheerleader; I am fearfully made. 



6.
almond eyes & thighs
& rug-burned knees 



7.
I don’t know which I prefer
to be a child in my father’s house
or a servant in my husband’s
or liberated by a
                        magazine. 



8.
Salma Hayek
            George Clooney’swifey
Fairouz
            Rima Fakih



9.
carved from bone         beautifulsacred
                                     stoned 
​


10.
She dies

like an American     in the street     or some Mesopotamian desert

At midnight      in the afternoon.       The bird also sings. 



11.







12.
Someday my name will sound like Olds.
Someday my name will sound like Plath.
Someday my name will sound like Abughattás,
in my father’s Spanish inflection. 




13.
created by God
to serve
coffee tea           fuck




Jessica Abughattas is a Palestinian American poet from Los Angeles. Her poems appear in Heavy Feather Review, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Roanoke Review, and elsewhere. She is an MFA candidate at Antioch University and associate managing editor of Lunch Ticket. 


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