Salma Amrou is an Egyptian-American poet and writer. She was named the 2022 Youth Poet Laureate of Southeastern Virginia and received the 2025 Academy of American Poets Prize at The College of William & Mary. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poets.org, Rattle, A Long House, Poetry Is Currency, and elsewhere.
By Salma Amrou
“peeling the skin of the same fruits until we peeled / back our own, to read our palms better, only // to find a line drawn straight down the middle, / one our mapless fingers could not cross.”