Back to Issue Thirty-Five

Transnational Humor

BY HAZEM FAHMY

 

The joke being:
I left my country

so that I may
study my country

in a vast,
cold country

that gives money to the men
who are the very reason I left my country.

The joke being: once, I wanted to want to be American, to think nothing
of the taxes on my sandwich, paying for a pilot to bomb a country

far away, and alien, and hot, and mysterious. I wanted to become a man
from nowhere, hence everywhere. I wanted the world to be a country

I can watch from afar on my porch, say: what a wonderful time to be alive
in this country.

 

Hazem Fahmy is a Pushcart-nominated poet and critic from Cairo. He is currently pursuing his MA in Middle Eastern Studies and Film Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. His debut chapbook, Red//Jild//Prayer, won the 2017 Diode Editions Contest. A Kundiman and Watering Hole Fellow, his poetry has appeared in, or is forthcoming from, Apogee, AAWW, Boston Review, Mizna, and The Offing. His performances have been featured on Button Poetry and Write About Now. He is a reader for the Shade Journal and a contributing writer to Film Inquiry.

Next (Kyle Dargan) >

< Previous (Austen Leah Rose)