The Camisole

The silk fabric slides between my fingers, I still feel the softness of its essential oils, permeating my skin, pungent and smooth as though I'd woven it just for you with spikes harvested from endless lavender fields in Provence, or as though I were a silk worm raised on lavender petals, and I'd spun that silken thread to wrap around me when you'd finally come, all that and more I dreamt of offering you, year after year, and here we are, that is, my camisole and I, waiting for you in the silence of that hotel room.

Hedy Habra was born in Egypt and is of Lebanese origin. She is the author of a poetry collection, Tea in Heliopolis (Press 53 2013); a short story collection, Flying Carpets (Interlink 2013), which is the 2013 Winner of the Arab American Book Award's Honorable Mention in Fiction; and a book of literary criticism, Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa (Iberoamericana/Vervuert 2012). She has a BS in Pharmacy from the French Faculté St. Joseph of Beirut, as well as an MA and MFA in English and an MA and PhD in Spanish literature, all from Western Michigan University. Her multilingual work appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including Connotation Press, Nimrod, The New York Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Diode, Cutthroat, Bitter Oleander, Puerto del Sol, Cider Press Review, Poet Lore, Inclined to Speak and Dinarzad's Children 2.  For more information, please visit www.hedyhabra.com