Cover Photo: illustration of a black-haired woman in a peach-pink dress dragging a chair to the bottom of the sea; above, rolling black hills in the distance are set against a starry sky, with a full moon reflecting on the water's surface
Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

Reimagining Light

The water flows through hollow bones and returns / as a song. It sounds familiar in the beginning / Then always changes.

Reimagining Light

bare and feathered. I’m never hungry. when the music starts playing. Muffled, it arrives Open, small bulbs pulsating between their eyes. My hair smells of copper; it grows wild behind me. I sit cross-legged on the floor, praying the miners never arrive, never make it this far. I stay the night. In the morning, my arms raise for warmth, my mouth opens & light comes out.

Nadra Mabrouk is the author of Measurement of Holy (Akashic Books, 2020), part of the New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set. The recipient of the 2019 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and works in publishing in New York City.