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Kat Abdallah

Performativity

By Kat Abdallah My teachers ask me
after seven months of genocide
if I’m holding up alright.
A.D. Lauren-Abunassar

What the Fish Say / Over There

By A.D. Lauren-Abunassar My godson wanted to go look at fish but I told him, today, beauty is canceled. We cried. I felt bad. I counted the unbeautiful like broken ribs. Shrapnel in the olive tree. Child-sized tourniquet. Saint Porphyrius’ watching and weeping. My father phones to tell me they’re down to vinegar; they pour into open wounds.
Aiya Sakr

Shahrazad, circa 2024

By Aiya Sakr On the day of the first flour massacre,
nothing I have ever said has been untrue.

Fourteen thousand and three hundred white
PVC flags flutter in the early spring morning.

By the time I cross the lawn, the IDF have killed
another child, and another flag springs up

Like a poppy.
This simile is too easy.
Janine Mogannam

When I am asked How Are You?? during the genocide of my people

By Janine Mogannam “I’m
pretty awful, all things considered. A few weeks ago
I couldn’t eat anything and now I’m constantly starving.
I know that’s a terrible thing to say.
I think my house plants might be dying but I’m not really sure?
They’re sad and limp-necked. I guess that’s a metaphor.
Gbenga Adesina

PARADISE

By Gbenga Adesina North of the country, a road led to the desert.
Dust was the first sentence. The Sahara
was a white darkness in the distance,
and beyond it the glint of a Great Lake.
We drove past fields of ginger and wild purple onions.
There was a public garden and a ring of white egrets
around still water.
Joanna Acevedo

Training Wheels

By Joanna Acevedo “I just wanted to check in with you about your friend who passed,” my therapist says at the end of our session. “Yeah, he’s still dead,” I quip. We share a long laugh.
Sasa Aakil

Black Mermaids and Swimming and Red Hair and Ancestry

By Sasa Aakil They say, Ariel could never be black.
That black folks don't have red hair and can't swim no how.
They list all the reasons we have no right to this title
and I can only think of Hasan.

Brown skin boy with hair red as fire.
Quick wit, quick smile.
Born with sunset resting atop his head like crown.
Sahar Muradi

What Fell, and Other Ways of Seeing August 15th

By Sahar Muradi K says what fell?
R says prices have shot up
I says our people did not fall
M says we have so much more to lose if we leave
R says the gardens are still awash in green
N says he was arrested
S says he is still dubbing films, just quietly
R says a mother sits in the road shrieking at every passing car
Rena Priest

Basket Lady and Greater Evils

By Rena Priest We tell our children stories
to keep them by our side:
Basket lady will get you.
She’ll put you in her basket
and carry you away,
deep into the forest
Kay Ulanday Barrett

How to make salabat

By Kay Ulanday Barrett Hoy! Listen, This is how to cut ginger, it’s a root, she said from
Chicago basement on first snow of the year. It’s the 90’s. Snow is
a big deal. Tear salt missing ocean salt, she cleared her throat.
Based on where we’re from, nothing can prepare us for frozen.
Fast forward: college friend asks How do you make that tea again?
The one you used to drink when it started to snow.
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