Golden Shovel after Maya Angelou's "On the Pulse of Morning" In the last third, there is no one to speak to but You,and still, my mouth is unable to perform what I was createdto do. Prayer, an oasis in the midst of the nighttime desert / If only I was brave enough to resist sleep, … Continue reading poetry// tahajjud (taking measurements)
creative writing
prose// lake street
I promised myself that here, I wouldn’t fold. The sun is a giant, blistering nectarine in the sky, hung just above the horizon, a marionette on a divine string. I am a tense driver, furrowed brow and eyes unafraid of so large a star. This little town is like a storybook. It is artificial and … Continue reading prose// lake street
prose// on the beginning of a second semester (where can i find the river?)
Starting a PhD program from your childhood bedroom is incredibly lonely. Never mind that you painted the walls over and bought new curtains and new furniture and never quite finished, it will always be that bedroom. Never mind that you like to be alone, that you don’t want to talk on the phone and haul … Continue reading prose// on the beginning of a second semester (where can i find the river?)
poetry// the day after my great grandmother’s funeral
the people i come from do not linger in the sky. after all, where would they go as the rain comes down, leaving everything hollowed and open? all at once, i have the desire to begin making wekka in my american grandmother’s gas oven, granulize the dried okra in my grandfather's american coffee grinder. there … Continue reading poetry// the day after my great grandmother’s funeral
prose// a portrait of wudu (the story of my great grandfather)
jiddu HagMusa, preparing his wudu pictured here, is my father's paternal grandfather, Hag Musa, may Allah have mercy on his soul. this is the first image i have seen of him, as he passed away the year that my parents were married, the same year my mother's paternal grandmother passed away, (a year of sorrow/ … Continue reading prose// a portrait of wudu (the story of my great grandfather)
prose// for Mama Nafisah
the people i love are dying. my great-grandmother, a great-aunt, my father's eldest sister has too been tucked underneath the earth. i clench my jaw laying in my bed. it is all i can do to save myself from jumping out of my blankets and running to the airport to leap on the first flight to Khartoum that i can book. i wouldn't even know where to go looking for the right graveyards, for where to lay down on the earth and press my heart as close as I can to where theirs used to pulse. i want to be loved by the people in my family who knew Allah.
prose// ramadan, ya ramadan (please, be gentle, I am fragile)
Last year was the best Ramadan of my life. I am afraid of what is supposed to take place on Thursday, the birth of a month as old and as familiar to me as my own family. I keep thinking, was that the peak? Will I never experience a Ramadan like that again? When I … Continue reading prose// ramadan, ya ramadan (please, be gentle, I am fragile)
prose// birth anniversaries and the witnessing of classrooms hallowing
I have felt it today, maybe for the first time in four years, maybe not, it is hard to recall. The texture of knowing, the feeling, “oh wow, this is what I have been doing for four years”. You know, the part of the Toni-Morrison-novel-reading-journey when you finally catch a glimpse of “it”: the arch, … Continue reading prose// birth anniversaries and the witnessing of classrooms hallowing
prose// seasonal produce
These days, winter comes angrily. Or maybe not. I project onto the weather sometimes, you know. Am I an onion? Strange question, I know. Obvious answers are evident, but who could possibly be that interested in the obvious?! I've thought about onions a lot. Vegetables that peel away, layer after layer, until there is nothing … Continue reading prose// seasonal produce
poetry// distance(d)
I want things I do not deserve. how awful to be choked by your own idle and uncertain hands? Maybe that is the punishment: longing with no reciprocity. it is impossible to know the dead the way I need to-- so take me to Medina! I just want to taste it for a moment, (what … Continue reading poetry// distance(d)
Daughter of Diaspora 