Home - a sketch
By Ekin Kurtdarcan
Home is not
the most beautiful place on earth.
it's where fishermen collect words from the sea,
and your future lies in a murky puddle,
casked by a porcelain tomb.
it's where you wear your prayer
like a brand of shame, as your mother
gives the shadows down the street
the evil eye.
the tea brews wistfully in its metal casket,
and men sweating under the burden
of a dome, lower their heads
in silent obedience.
My grandmother watched the news
where they shot a shaman
who, in pursuit of a poem
hid in the house of the Virgin.
a gypsy stood on the edge of Ida
to grab Spring by her skirt — Beauty
is only worth the people
who nurture it.
Home
is where the drizzle punches bullet holes
and the crops explode through the soil
for the harvest of sorrow.
Didim, 2016
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Born and raised in Ankara, Ekin is currently a student of Comparative Literature at King’s College London. With a background in classical piano, she is constantly looking for ways to incorporate music into her writing. She writes essays, reviews on visual arts, short stories and poetry, and has an unhealthy obsession with opera, travelling, cultural studies and postcolonial literary theory.
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