Poetry: Single Women by Yasmine Ameli
In “Single Women,” the speaker remembers a time when there were no men around to encourage “the pretension of our modesty.” Instead, freedom and liberation reign, as the women “roamed the house…with or without bath towels or underwear.”
Single Women
After the men left
and with them the pretension
of our modesty,
we roamed the house with blouses
buttoned up en route,
with or without bath towels
or underwear, wet with premenstrual
discharge, wiggled off
in the kitchen, fresh cotton
shimmied up the hips mid-
conversation, my mother noting
you got your hanging labia
from your grandmother,
just as from her I got my eyes:
two almonds: green and brown.
Yasmine Ameli
Yasmine Ameli is an Iranian American writer from Worcester, Massachusetts. She holds a BA in English from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Virginia Tech. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, AGNI, Narrative, Black Warrior Review, Mizna, and elsewhere. Find her at yasmineameli.com and on Instagram @yasmineameli.
