LOW FLYING PLANES [From metal and yellow underneath the tire]

From metal and yellow underneath the tire
flattening I couldn’t decipher
the bird or the material which my mother
would leave me through, in.
I, missing everything, had to turn, believe
in reason. Because my mother decided
to name me after flight I abandoned rocks
I left countries. Emerald
that could never be blue and lavender
rose. I’ve forgiven every danger
just to sleep with no stone
in my mind. I kept thinking of
my father when his mother
passed. When my brother made
someone die. So I could tear,
beyond imagining what above
would fly.

Credit

Copyright © 2026 by Hajjar Baban. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 13, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem

“I wanted to begin to touch the surface of silence as it built my life. Demystifying this poem would go against the thing that allows it to work, it would unravel the lie in what I try to declare. Anyway, a lot of it is in that word beyond.”
—Hajjar Baban