ISHA CAMARA
It’s always me watching over the sleeping baby in a room.
I am tasked with this the same way a rooster is possessed to croon, no matter the hour. In Gambia, the rooster screams before the sun rises, then the sun rises. Then I follow. I pray Fajr. There is something there in the dusk haze, the golden witching hour, a summoning to be awake before the rest of the world. But. Back to the baby: My little niecey boo, my juni baby. My thousandth Mariam who is the hundredth-thousandth of thousands of Mariams to grace these grounds. The mother of pearls and undead ascended sons. When I run my fingers against her nose, when she grabs my single finger in her whole fist, it isn’t primal instinct, something rooted inside me that would move me to fuck up everyone in this room for this child. I can’t protect her any more than she has protected me before birth. This moment is love outside my door. My tiny might, were you what they cut from me so many summers ago? Am I your machete as you are my reason towards anarchy? She’s a handful and I wait on baited breath for when she starts stirring. She knocks her face against mine, rubbing whatever babies always seem to have on their face into my cheek. She’s too warm and sort of gross and smells so soft. She’s hyper fixating on my lashes, which readies me for her attempt on my life when she reaches out for them with a fierce grip. We both smell like dried mangos, which means we come from the same tree, which means we both felt the moment when the sun wasn’t ours anymore.
Isha Camara is a poet, visual and makeup artist hailing from South Minneapolis and recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a OMAI First Wave alumna. She’s been writing and performing poetry since the age of thirteen and moves with the intention to always sharpen her blade. Most subjects she writes about circle thoughts and experiences of her identity as a Black Muslim woman and the ways in which she navigates in America; and in turn understanding how America responds back to her. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Southeast Review, Muzzle Magazine, Wisconsin Life and Palette Poetry. Isha has performed for the Madison Public Library, Walker Art Center and MMoCA.