The Weatherman's Text

My solution to seasickness:
become a champagne pink cloud.

Once at a dinner party in Austin
I sat beside a woman whose

mouth became the sea. I hadn’t
discovered cloud-me yet,

so I went home with a fire in my head.
For too many years, I walked

without leg warmers, treated
the Milky Way as a scientific fact.

But now at dinner parties,
I speak Galaxy during small talk.

Observations about the weather
seem too narcissistic. Freud

believed sex was always the
subtext. Too much talk about

the universe would have made
him guess, penis envy. Once

I almost died on the North Sea.
The ferry rocked through

the night as if writing a suicide
note. I couldn’t fall asleep until

the weatherman texted me,
become a champagne pink cloud.









Mehnaz Sahibzada was born in Pakistan and raised in Los Angeles. She is a 2009 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow in Poetry. Her short story, "The Alphabet Workbook," appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Her poetry chapbook, Tongue-Tied: A Memoir in Poems, was published in 2012, and her second chapbook, Summer Forgets to Wear a Petticoat, is forthcoming. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Asia Writes, The Rattling Wall, and Pedestal Magazine. For additional information, visit mehnazsahibzada.com.