Maya Salameh
MUSIC TO DROWN BY

Shape Poem

do you understand?
you speak
& the sun spills out. this
is how a computer is made:
an ocean meets a relic
in a midsize city.
their story
becomes innards
which become algorithm.
a law kisses a girl in a cramped bar.
history subleases a rent-controlled apartment.
boolean: my throat makes a mildly viral TikTok audio.
boolean: two girls kiss in a history. I
could want you
or hate that want.

Maya Salameh is the author of How To Make An Algorithm In the Microwave (University of Arkansas Press, 2022) and rooh (Paper Nautilus Press, 2020). She is the winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize and the Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers. She has served as a National Student Poet, America’s highest honor for youth poets, and her work has appeared in POETRY, The Rumpus, AGNI, and the LA Times, among others. She can be found @mayaslmh or mayasalameh.com.

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