Sara Elkamel

Sep 7, 2024 | waxwingmag.org | Sara Elkamel

On Every NightEvery night is a new house with the same address. It lifts the lid off love. Night is looking at your face after—To find its beauty gone. Every night is a new contusion—Do you remember how it happened? Every night is Yes, no, yes, yes—I was happiest on the other side of this. Every night you search yourself. It takes the time it takes. Night is two lilac bodies with one head—Whose eyes are your eyes? Every night is Don’t you recognize me? Every night is No.I don’t recognize myself.

Apr 22, 2024 | muzzlemagazine.com | Sara Elkamel

after Natalie Diaz              My bare toes grip the lower lip of living, a hairfrom the river.                             If the Nile is the north-flowing body of god, then they’re about to castmy body into god’s.                            Whose hunger am I? Whose virgin blood?                This is a weddingwithout blood. With split ends slunkbeneath my veil, a belt of lotus thorns around my waist. Two men clutch my shoulders like heinous angels--death drums in their eyes.

Sep 5, 2023 | doubleblindmag.com | Sara Elkamel

Until she was a sophomore in Claremont McKenna College, Haya Al-Hejailan believed that all drugs were bad. Al-Hejailan grew up in Saudi Arabia, where Islam—which deems intoxicants haram, or a crime against God—informs the constitution. In Saudi Arabia,  possession of drugs can garner prison sentences or public floggings, and selling them can result in the death penalty.

Aug 10, 2023 | tinyurl.com | Mona Kareem |Sara Elkamel

I Will Not Fold These Maps by Mona Kareem, translated from the Arabic by Sara Elkamel, Poetry Translation Centre, 2023In 1986, just one year before the poet Mona Kareem was born, the stateless Arab population of Kuwait, who had been denied citizenship when Kuwait declared its independence in 1961, became categorized as illegal residents.

May 31, 2023 | yalereview.org | Mona Kareem |Sara Elkamel

Mona Kareem Sara Elkamel I sat in the chair opposite him before he said I could. Fear had paralyzed my knees; my back could only lean against the wall. As he pulled the door closed and leapt toward his desk, I quickly went over the key milestones in my life, which I had charted and rehearsed aloud in the days leading up to this trip. It suddenly annoyed me that I made no effort to study stars or insignia patches; maybe then I could have guessed his rank. Do I ask him?