ANTIOQUIA by Safia Elhillo

In this sincere, vulnerable poem, Wasafiri's current International Writer in Residence Safia Elhillo describes a visit to Medellin, Colombia. She notes with wonder and softness how different memories come back to her – the feel of a mattress, the sound of a familiar Arabic – amid reflections on the different languages she carries.

You can also read Safia Elhillo's Lead Feature in Wasafiri 127: Solidarities. As part of her residency with Wasafiri, she is tutoring two online writing workshops in September. Book your place here.

Supported by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

ANTIOQUIA 

We arrive at midnight 
to the mountaintop airport, 
the city below hidden from us 
at first beneath the clouds, 
stark and white against 
the hour’s pitch sky. 
One more turn and it reveals itself, 
concave valley shimmering 
like an evening gown, sequined 
by thousands of lit windows. 
The compressed mattress I descend onto 
calls a memory into my body 
from earlier places, a plastic mug dipped 
into warm water from a bucket to bathe.
In the morning I feel too shy  
to call up the language, 
though I speak it enough and understand. 
The pathways in my brain begin to heat 
in the swirl of every word I’ve collected  
across countries, collapsing me 
into bed by nine each evening 
from exerting myself in concentration. 
In every poet I see my own grandfather 
in soft slacks, collared shirt with short sleeves. 
The ones who speak Arabic offer me 
their memories of Khartoum, 
time they spent there before I was born.  
I show them recent photographs 
and in their silence I understand  
they too once stood inside these buildings 
that no longer stand, 
that they recognise the ghost cityscape 
lost in the air around the rubble. 
With our shared language they make me 
their daughter, assign me books 
for my vocabulary. 
It occurs to me to be embarrassed but I have 
no energy left over by the time I finish conjugating, 
my every declaration punctuated 
by a sheepish smile.  
My Spanish without regionalism reveals me 
as a textbook student, 
language learned beneath fluorescent lights. 
In Arabic I am unambiguously Sudanese, 
my ق pronounced as a soft g,  
my oaths and exclamations.  
I was so worried before I came here 
that I would not be understood.  
Now my English feels frictionless and glib, 
full of sense and devoid of meaning.  
The old accents of my childhood raising themselves 
across it like hairs on the back of a neck.

Cover image: Courtesy Musnany on Unsplash