a golden bracelet, the one from your mother, you mean to pass onto your daughter, not the oldest one because she is the story of travel, but the next one who holds your skirt when you sit on the couch reading the news in English
flowers ribbon a single braid
you comb her hair with your fingers, lace in silk threads,
tatreez, alphabet home
prayer
prayer
prayer
good night my darlings
sky fall
caved breastplate
curled spine
thunder
against
prayer
prayer
prayer
knees crack
wrists bound
slit up the middle
They will show the pictures of you collapsing onto the stones, they will show you
ground into stone, they will shovel you under the world, they will go after more.
And you molten.
Copyright © 2025 by Elmaz Abinader. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 24, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.