poetry

yes people/no people

yes people/no people

no people
stiffen
push their palms away
start shaking their head before you’ve finished
shut down their synapses
until all that’s left is
no
it’s not possible

they like to say
ensuring your fate’s in
someone else’s hands

yes people
smile
wave you in
squint one eye and purse their lips
searching for a way through
wrack their brains for a workaround
their only thought is
you’re fine
it’s no problem

they like to say
clasping your hand on this journey
we’re all making around the sun

poetry

khatim sulayman

The eight-pointed star is an important part of Muslim iconography. It is also know as khatim sulayman – “the seal of the prophets.” When tessellated, the negative space can create a four-pointed star. The pattern of intersecting 4- and 8-pointed stars is also known as “the breath of the compassionate”, signifying the rhythm of expansion and contraction. Lots of other things come in 8s, and this star may also evoke the compass rose. I used the first letter of each traditional wind’s name to start each of the 8 lines in this poem. We’re also reading Bill Bryson’s A Brief History of Nearly Everything at bedtime these days, and we’re learning about inflation theory and singularity.

khatim sulayman

The universe expands while the
Globe contracts.
Listening to Uptown Funk and the call to prayer
Simultaneously is a singular experience,
One step in our family’s eastward pilgrimage to
Learn other ways of being, to be
Purposeful in our conduct,
Mindful of the many forms compassion takes.

poetry

niqab

niqab

a black shape glides past
folds of cloth sway
tick tock like a pendulum
darker, more severe
than the nuns my parents knew
all that we may meet
are two eyes
set in a thin band of openness
leaving so much of our sameness
cloaked, obscured