Dowry:
eyelid canvas of seaside village
snaked with electricity and rooftops.
Fraud:
I love the jaws of another city.
Daughter:
of refugees?
Mourn the silhouette-
self, the hennaed version.
Arable girl.
Love:
luck-wedding, soil
of cobwebs. Mine.
Gaza:
starflowers my mouth,
only teeth-poems. Only pomegranate seeds.
Misplace:
enormously. Brother
and sister,
gift is spine-
fury. I call to myself as minarets do.
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American poet, novelist, and clinical psychologist. Her poetry collections have won the Arab American Book Award, and the Crab Orchard Series. Her debut novel, Salt Houses, was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and named a “Best Book of the Year” by NPR, NYLON, and Kirkus Reviews. Hala has been published in the New York Times, Guernica, Lenny, the Colorado Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn.
*You can also find this poem here, published by the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival.
