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Vertical Divider
every morning
I untangle prayer beads knotted while I slept. I set dislocated beads back into spine back into snake back into my grandfather’s hands pull them along a string of story goats we raised ourselves and slit vertical at Eid; kites we pushed from terraces; clothes baked in half by Bombay sun; and this river of women in which I fall into trance and rhythm. clap-lunge clap-lunge clap-lunge-whirl during festival which is always if you pay attention to the moon. my fingers fumble the spaces between artifact and excavation. clicks like gallops of fate clicks like generations what we pass and what we save until wilting. every morning I untangle messes of prayer beads wound round my throat borrow slack from tightrope and grandmother’s drawstring billowing skirt and mountain passes purple silk I tuck into when valleys turn abyss and names of God routine. |
About This Unit: Poems on Family and Finding Other Lines of Symmetry |
NAAZNEEN DIWAN is a queer, Muslim poet and social justice educator. She founded Maktoub Collective and has been an Artist-in-Residence and a Lead Instructor for Baldwin House Urban Writing Residency hosted by Twelve Literary Arts in Cleveland. She attended Art Omi writers' residency and is the founder of Kalaashakti healing arts and meditation workshops with Muslim women. Her poetry and prose have been published in several publications, including Entropy Mag, the Yale Review, iō Literary Journal, Sky Island Journal, Cathexis Press, Serendipity Journal, Flypaper Magazine, Kohl, Project As[I]Am, SAMAR, and MOONROOT, and have been performed in venues such as Tuesday Night Cafe, The Japanese American National Museum in LA, Khmer Arts Academy, Other Books, and The Last Bookstore. She just completed her first poetry manuscript, Make a Season of Me, and is working on a flash fiction collection called Walas.
