Tarfia Faizullah is an American poet (born 1980).
She won a 2009 Cohen Award. Her book, Seam won the 2014 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Awards.
SELF-PORTRAIT AS ARTEMIS
Tarfia Faizullah
It wasn’t long before I rose
into the silk of my night-robes
and swilled the stars
and the beetles
back into sweetness—even my fingernails
carry my likeness, and I smudge
the marrow of myself
into light. I whisper street-
car, ardor, midnight
into the ears of the soldier
so he will forget everything
but the eyes of the night nurse
whose hair shines beneath
the prow of her white cap.
In the end, it is me
he shipwrecks. O arrow.
My arms knot as I pluck
the lone string tauter.
O crossbow. I kneel. He oozes,
and the grasses and red wasp
knock him back from my sight.
The night braids my hair.
I do not dream. I do not glow.