"Women of Color" by Diane Montana Jansson.
© Please do not reproduce without artist's permission.
WATCHING ARAB IDOL
WITH ABDELHALIM HAFEZ
by Safia Elhillo
i speak the language but to learn the words
i learn an accent that is not mine i learn
halim could be singing of a brown
that is not mine i am reminded by thick lute music
not halim’s melancholy glamour here the voices crack
the men squat around drums in their white cotton جلاليب
the percussion urgent their accent just like mine
i open my mouth a man in a cairo shop
tells me i look too clean to be from sudan
waits for me to thank him lebanese singer ragheb alama
is my least favorite judge on arab idol
i watch every week as the brownest
are the first to leave including my favorite
a dark-lipped nubian from the egyptian side
who parts his hair to the left & sings
halim songs in halim’s voice
when ragheb alama says sudanese women
are the ugliest in the world i am afraid
that i believe him when i see halim in a suit
in a ballroom with an orchestra
i think of glamour then look at my own brown hands
at my own grandmother hiking a printed توب
up around her knees to wash her feet for prayer
her hair parted in the middle
in two fat braids coiled around her ears
Safia Elhillo is Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, living in New York City. Safia is a Cave Canem fellow, and is currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at the New School. She is a poetry editor at Kinfolks Quarterly: a journal of black expression. At the moment, she is shortlisted for the 2015 Brunel University African Poetry Prize.
