Photo credit: Krista Fogle
Sahar Muradi is author of the chapbook [ G A T E S ] from Black Lawrence Press / is co-editor of One Story, Thirty Stories: An Anthology of Contemporary Afghan American Literature / is co-founder of the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association / has been the recipient of the Stacy Doris Memorial Poetry Award, a Kundiman Poetry Fellowship, and an Asian American Writers’ Workshop Open City Fellowship / has an MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College, an MPA in international development from NYU, and a BA in creative writing from Hampshire College / directs the poetry programs at City Lore / and dearly believes in the bottom of the rice pot. saharmuradi.com
After the New York Times article “Dispatch from Mosul: With a Pregnant Iraqi, Collapsed in the Desert as Bullets Fly” by Rukmini Callimachi, March 1, 2017.
come baby
(for Khadija Abbas)
we come carrying crying
the train of colors from the sky
come breathing clutching
what few what fierce
come climbing in plastic
shoes a desert a white flag
come baby a bag of fluid
come baby come baby come
brother even the dog
wants a cigarette even
the smoke wants to be free