Poetry

in this monster / of a city we call Tehran, where the strands / of your hair became the biggest thorn in / the side of this regime ravenous

all the white gods of language: binary— / ain’t shit; shapeshift—code switch; articulate—Black / as fuck, smooth-talk DNA encoded; spell-caster— / gxrl, I’m mythical auntie, enchanting, making y’all / as black & free as America ain’t.

our mothers, red soled, holler resistance / eyes peeled and ready for love, toes planted / in terra cotta, they worship on knees 

How beyond years they pray for a heartbeat. How they set homes afire yet groan for their darlings. How even in grief, they hear music.

The kind my mother spewed over the phone each night when Papa sneaked out for a smoke, complaining to her sister about me, him, her period, the price of saffron, the thievery of mango season, and I heard by hiding the cordless in my room.

of when I was small / enough to trust a thin :|: woven / promise of comfort

scattered like salt on a sky as tender and open as a wound / each one / a distant city

trying to rearrange stars and stripes into something recognizable