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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Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year.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
Aunt Chloe's Politics Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 06/23/2019
Grace Joy Harjo 06/22/2019
pitter/patter heidi andrea restrepo rhodes 06/21/2019
They Don’t Love You Like I Love You Natalie Diaz 06/20/2019
The scalps of the women with the best prophecies are dry this season Ladan Osman 06/19/2019
Cling LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs 06/18/2019
Collude Bhanu Kapil 06/17/2019
At the Carnival Anne Spencer 06/16/2019
Dream Variations Langston Hughes 06/15/2019
I hope to God you will not ask Esther Belin 06/14/2019

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