by Dinan Alasad
nile tilapia on Friday and the house smells like the river. my father knows the sea, he can spot the North Star on any sky. when he was my age, he spent months on a ship. I remember the faded pictures, him softer in the face, half-smiling in stained overalls. holding his guitar, like a life-jacket. today, he picks at my fish for me, piles the flesh in front of me. “be careful about the thorny bits” he says. “I, also, couldn’t look dead things in the eye” he doesn’t say. ____
Dinan Alasad is a writer, translator and econometrician from Khartoum, Sudan. Her writing has appeared on RE:, 1919, The Drinking Gourd and Trad Magazine. You can find more of her work on her website whenever she gets around to launching it, in shaa Allah. Follow her Twitter @DinanAlasad to catch this imminent launch and any other updates.