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Poem-a-Day

The only daily poetry series publishing new work by today’s poets.

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Poem-a-day

True Metal

           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. 

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Elmaz Abinader

Elmaz Abinader
Courtesy of Elmaz Abinader
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Khaled Mattawa is the Guest Editor of December. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mattawa about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
preface to a traffic stop: sound Randall Horton 07/12/2021
Wind Rising in the Alleys Lola Ridge 07/11/2021
In Summer Twilight Joshua Henry Jones Jr. 07/10/2021
remedies I S*an D. Henry-Smith 07/09/2021
What he thought belly down, when I was 8 years old Duriel E. Harris 07/08/2021
Born. Living. Will. Die. Camonghne Felix 07/07/2021
Everything Needs Fixing Karla Cordero 07/06/2021
the shoes Wo Chan 07/05/2021
Good Night Carl Sandburg 07/04/2021
July Henrietta Cordelia Ray 07/03/2021

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