and one pen.
She said, with a shaking voice,
Learn these things, before they teach you.
Death loves a woman, but we are still here.
And the moon is crying, or maybe singing
and the stars look down in mourning
as we melt hatred and weave compassion,
gather the waste from each body
and weld resilience.
We do this every day—make a good thing
out of nothing,
be the strong ones,
be okay even when we’re not.
But today, we’re more than okay,
we are women.
So, take my strength, I’ve got plenty.
Take my hands, I’ve got two.
Take my voice, let it guide you
and if it shakes, ask yourself:
when the earth shakes,
do you think that she’s afraid?
Jezebel
A praying mantis
Savors each dismantled mate.
Love or gluttony?
Why I Haven’t Told You Yet
To the guy I like: wake the fuck up.
I’m standing here, all morning dew brilliant
and you, brick wall, bane of my existence,
with the gaping mouth and the misdirected conviction.
I want to cry for you,
but I don’t because this, this is hilarious.
This is the cruelest kind of mirth—
To be standing 3 inches from the center of your affection
and yet still, there’s a universe,
a river of obstinacy
a field of missed opportunities and horrible, horrible timing standing between us.
You stupid, stupid manchild.
With the barely there smile
and the dimple on your right cheek,
I left the girl in me standing at an altar of her own fears waiting for you,
but you’re here
at the receiving end of this poem.
A friend once told me that romance is like a house;
you, the girl, open the window, and he, the boy, climbs in.
Hey, asshole! The window is open!
That’s when I start wondering why I’m standing in a house.
A house built by a generation of men and women who have a habit of putting people in pretty boxes.
I wonder what broken architect laid these bricks.
Is this how it’s going to be?
Me, walking the corridors of my own mind,
seeing the telltale signs of a boy who doesn’t belong there?
His handprint on the mirror,
his silhouette at the corner table.
I open my eyes
You once said I’m cute when I’m angry,
Well, I’m about to look phenomenal.
We teach our girls to quarantine their emotions—
isolate heart and reason or risk perceptions of hysteria.
We’re taught that our anger is a misconception,
that our discontent will pass as long as we smile pretty,
clean up nice, and play into this courtship dichotomy.
This twisted game of act and receive
where your role is assigned at birth.
Well, this is me telling you
that the only winning move is not to play.
So, I’m gonna burn this whole house down.
I’m ripping through these walls
so fast that millennia of cages will rattle loose
and every person who’s ever stood at this window
And every other person who’s ever stood on the other side, too paralyzed to move, will walk free.
This is an official notice—
Emi has left the building.
But first, a word of advice: for those of you still dancing around houses—just use the door.
Prospects
The new kid named Adil
came to our mosque.
At 12, he
checked all the right
boxes:
Great at soccer,
straight As,
pious,
good to his mother.
The girls fawned
over this ideal
we had come to strive for.
One day,
we asked which of us he would
choose.
He said he’s going
to grow up
and marry Beyoncé.
Telephone
Passing blessings
Hand to hand
A game of
Spiritual
Telephone
Until the message is transformed in each heart
Everyone smiles at a different truth
How to Translate a Joke
A man walks into the market looking for a date.
He asks the village playboy for help.
The village playboy says,
watch, and learn.
He walks up to a girl selling honey
and says, do you have any honey, honey?
She swoons, gives him honey
and a kiss.
He walks up to a woman selling flowers,
Do you have any flowers, you rose?
She melts, gives him flowers
and a kiss.
He walks to a third woman,
Do you have any sugar, sugar?
She practically dies,
gives him sugar,
and kisses him twice.
The playboy comes back,
your turn, stud.
The man apprehensively walks up
to a woman selling dairy
and says,
Do you have any milk, cow?
Realize that humor transcends
all boundaries; that laughter
is a language that knows no borders;
that this joke I heard in Arabic
makes perfect sense in English,
and French, and any other dialect—
Realize that we call women cows
in every language.
Realize that humor leaves little room
for questions, and even less room
for victims and even less room
for apologies.
Realize that in one version of this joke,
the man is looking to pick up girls,
in another, he’s looking for a wife,
in a third, he’s looking
for an answer.
And maybe the cow slaps him,
or the cow asks him to leave
and he tries again,
or she walks faster,
clutches her purse
or maybe she threatens him
and is jailed for treason or maybe
the cow sues him
and the case is dismissed
or they settle
down
We are willing to say offensive
more than we say dangerous
as if harm isn’t transitive
as if it isn’t something you do
to another person.
We like to pretend that I am not
as uncomfortable alone
on the streets of New York
as I am on the streets of Nepal,
that a stroll in Philly or Indiana,
Minnesota, doesn’t bring as many stares
as in India, or Sudan, or Egypt
That violence is a third world problem,
that i
t isn’t here, hiding
in a conversation, or a bouquet,
or a market
that not being alone makes a difference.
If they don’t get the joke, say it again,
smile more this time, repeat the punch line,
pause for dramatic effect
use jazz hands. If you have to,
laugh.
In another version, that man walks
into the market, looking for a date,
and leaves with an unwilling woman,
a bounty.
In my language, I am a sweet,
and if not that, a decoration,
a flower, a gift.
He walks up to the girl selling honey,
she gives him her eyes,
her arms, her silence.
He walks up to the girl selling sugar,
she practically dies.
He walks up to the girl selling flowers,
calls her a rose, strips all her thorns
sticks her in a bouquet,
she fights, he breaks her,
calls her a dead thing,
she melts, is trampled
in the market.
There are four women in the joke,
none of them speak.
Realize that humor transcends
all boundaries; that laughter
is a language that knows no borders;
that this joke I heard in Arabic
hurts just as much in English,
and French, and any other dialect—
In the last version, the man is foaming
at the mouth with another girl’s jugular
around his teeth, his Adam’s apple
making excuses for him
from all the way
over there.
And the market is cheering,
the girl’s hair a bracelet around his wrist
and the market is still cheering,
or the audience, or the schoolyard,
or the other men
and he asks her name.
She says,
You left a box of your things
in my stomach.
Are you still trying to find
yourself on another girl’s
neck?
Last week, my seven-year-old brother
said that I am the reason he wakes up
every morning.
I gave him a hug, he whispered to my mother,
works every time—
I saw the fear in her eyes.
We laughed.
the life of a refugee is counted in moments
Cinderblock
A brick broke through
the window of our masjid today.
The Imam unlocks the doors every morning,
sweeps up the glass,
replaces the window
before afternoon prayer.
No fear in sacred spaces.
The brick still sits in the main office;
a gentle reminder of the hand
that broke through our sanctuary.
The world is vast inside the masjid
but small everywhere else.
No Funeral
Elder Shama collapsed after
Sisters’ Quran circle—
Cardiac arrest—
The other women—
crying—
gathered their children,
started screaming,
started praying.
My mother—
silent—
started CPR.
I—
used to this—
called the police.
September
My grandmother’s eyes courting cataracts
hands held firm by the arthritis
her favorite braids dangling with the fabric
she still wore on summer days
You’re my mother and you’re going to die here
my mother’s body to my grandmother
This house needs me in it
my grandmother to the air.
the women in my family are places
apart. To remember them is to remember
what we
have left.
She Threw Things out of Windows and I Watched
We learned to hit the ground together
when the bullets came.
My sister and I used to spend our afternoons
tethered to the windows
along the far side of our apartment,
watching the days pass as we aged.
Time moved breathtakingly slowly
back then; as if someone had dipped
our entire childhood in glue
and set the mismatched pieces out to dry.
As soon as she could walk,
Fofo became obsessed with flying
So, she threw things out of windows
and I watched.
First the house keys, my mother’s dress,
a series of everyday items
every spoon or doll or book
met a swift and thorough end.
That’s when the banging came.
Quick successive bursts, a choir
of bleeding mouths, a series of screams
Both inside and outside of our apartment.
I couldn’t stop looking at my mother,
face pressed to the ground,
arms pinning both my sister and me to her sides
We stayed there until the sun began to set,
Playing dead in a high-rise in Yemen.
Years later, in Philly, we laughed and sang,
the worst behind us,
aunties and uncles feasting at our table
an orphans’ communion,
a group of Sudanese people far enough
to forget the war
When the banging came, everybody hit the floor,
from the three-year-olds by the stairs
to the uncles in the dining room,
My face hit the carpet,
our bodies remember
what our senses forget.
To a family of immigrants,
the Fourth of July sounds
like a firing squad,
like the debt collector,
like the dictator coming to call.
It sounds like sunset for the last time or
it sounds like faces hitting the concrete
their voices still remaining, still pleading,
still praying in the wrong language.
Classrooms
The first time I was asked to leave a classroom
the teacher said I was too smart
That the other kids needed to catch up
For generations, the women in my family
have been denied a seat in the classroom
and there I stood, repeating the cycle
for a completely different reason
I wonder if the teacher knew the bite of hunger
that drove me to her doorstep,
If she’d tasted sorrow’s whip
that sewed the silence on my tongue
Did she know that this language
tasted like sandpaper the first time?
That I used to write on beaten earth
and cement walls?
That once I held a pen, I never
wanted to put it down?
Did she know the difference she made
that day?
The danger she carved back
; into my safe space
All my life, I’ve been staring
at painted ceilings.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
that will never claim me.
Learning history as if it hadn’t tried
to erase me, as if I hadn’t spent afternoons
in the hallways because my teacher didn’t know
what to do with a girl who knew too much.
She told me to lighten up, turn that frown
upside down like a pretty girl.
The second time I left the classroom
was to see a doctor because of a burn.
Hot tea on my arm, my mother’s tears, and an afternoon that changed me.
The doctor said, such a shame, what a scar on such a beautiful girl
The third time was to head to the Capitol Building
on an April afternoon and sit among men
I’ve been hanging on to these moments
Learning to keep things inside,
You wear a mask long enough
and it starts to feel like home.
If I could go back, I wouldn’t have left that classroom,
I would’ve stood, reciting arithmetic
like I hadn’t lost anything
Like I haven’t seen the world end
a thousand times.
Like I hadn’t held my mother as she cried
or my father as he broke over and over again.
Like I never played hopscotch in a war zone
Like I haven’t woken up
on the wrong side of heaven
every day since.
Where I come from, the opposite of learning
is death. The price of speaking is flesh.
The weight of being a woman scars
deeper than the most unforgiving of wounds
But not today, not among my sisters,
not in this room, not in the next,
Not in a world where I can stand,
me here woman, proud
speaking like the world didn’t try to erase me.
wearing my wings and vaulting
fists raised toward the sky
When your existence is an act of defiance, live.
Boy in the Sand
I saw a boy make his final stand today,
face buried in a sea of sand, body prone, bent, broken
like the waves.
His chest was not moving,
his heart did not beat, everything around him was suspended
in the varied turmoil of land and water;
push and pull—as if each were trying to reclaim him.
Sisters' Entrance Page 2