Two Poems
by Majda Gama
Teen Romances
The shimmer of thigh skin
without its summer
coat of swimming pool tan
makes my legs look
thicker, stout.
These are not
the western thighs
of the teen romances
I smuggled back to the Middle East.
These are thighs
that haven’t touched shorts
while away in the Saudi school year—
or even since I found stains
in my white underwear.
The rust-colored discharge
a total mystery until one morning
I opened my underwear drawer
and found a box of pads.
Soft thighs that have forgotten the rasp
of sidewalk lip while squatting
and sucking a Slurpee,
knees near my nose. Cherry cola
sugar breath exhaling
from me like a gaudy miasma.
These thighs will strengthen,
and darken,
they always do, but not in
a golden way like cheerleaders.
My legs become open to the public.
Glanced at as they glisten from
wading in the shallow end. Body too.
At the pool I found an old friend
from elementary school
to talk to while slinging my legs
over the side and floating weightless.
It was so easy to confess
my crush on his friend,
Spencer, like the cool store
with the shadowy back room
full of glow-in-the dark posters
and teenagers. Spencer ate glue
on craft day while cutting and pasting
paper the way we did in analog days.
Spencer, I was told, liked me too.
My hair spread behind me in golden loops,
sun-kissed like girls in books.
All around me was sun refraction
and warmth. My bare feet
began to sizzle against the white
concrete.
Bottle of Gucci RUSH
The hot-red, cassette shaped perfume isn’t for sale
Anymore, but an old bottle in an old country
Makes me reach for it in an act of remembrance
Or worship. The exterior has the luster of lacquer
& when I push down on the hesitant stopper
The scent that exhales from that reluctant lip
Is a jump-cut in a movie to the age of 29
& hair the color of the bottle, lips as glossy too—
Nighttime still a passion I was loyal to—
All my heart went into keeping myself shiny
In this RUSH of a world, not too old yet,
Old enough to have spending money for perfume,
Small, spiky purses, fishnet tights with seams.
Every night I wet these wrists with the scent of my age.
Majda Gama is an Arab American poet based in the Washington, DC area. Majda is the author of the poetry collection In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls, winner of the Wandering Aengus Press prize for poetry, and the chapbook The Call of Paradise (Two Sylvia’s). Her poetry has been published in Adroit, AGNI, Ploughshares, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, and Tupleo Quarterly. Her honors include a Gregory Djanikian Scholar award and the Graybeal-Gowen award for Virginia poets from Shenandoah literary journal. In 2025 she received a special mention from the Pushcart Prize for a poem published by Terrain. Her favorite pizza toppings have varied over time from pineapple and ham in the eighties to her current taste for the classic Neapolitan margherita topped with basil leaves. Her ideal date is having a milkshake with someone she isn’t embarrassed to enjoy a milkshake in front of.
Forget Cool 