The Face Game - Sabina Khan-Ibarra

I never knew the fear of

a face in full view

until I met him

show me an eye, nut-brown, lined

with sparse lashes

a nose, round-

tipped but long and narrow

thin lips, barely covering

small teeth with smaller gums

when dissected, I can hold

them close, roll them in my palm

blow on them for good

luck. snake eyes

tossed up in the air

kick them around

but put them together

and I cower in fear

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Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a writer and an educator. She is a recent SFSU Graduate with an MFA in Creative Writing (Distinguished Honors), where she now teaches Creative Writing. Two of her poems have recently been published in anthologies, one in iO Literary magazine and the second is in a book called 'Show us your Papers' which is about being othered in America. A chapter from her new novel, The Poppy Flower, has been accepted into an anthology called “Taboos and Transgression” (Madville Publishing, 2021). Sabina is the recipient of the Joe Brainard Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction, the Wilmer award in short fiction, and first place in Martha’s Vineyard Fellowship. She currently resides in Northern California with her husband and two children, five hens, and four rabbits.