Repetition

I saw a perfect tree today

I saw a perfect tree today

From my cabin bed on a Via Rail train 

Through the North of Ontario

I saw a perfect tree today

It was tall and thin and scraggly and prim

Then I saw another just as perfect

Short and sturdy with branches and brambles 

And then another with a rugged fat trunk

Older than the rest, but just as...

Praying Herd: For Safe Journey

Draw a line through our scattered bodies. The pattern of fallen calves in this meadow will mirror

the constellation above. Look up. We whip our tails to a silent song:

We sing to the moon, ask for wings to lift our flock to heaven;

We plead to the moon, since she will take pity;

We beg of the moon since she changes, as our circumstance must also...

On My Tongue

Bismillah is my first memory.

I became a bird in the Qur’an

at hardly eight years old.

I opened the dark green cover

and revealed the slippery

two hearts: Arabic

and its English translation.

On Saturdays, I learned to repeat

passages in Arabic,

to...

susiya