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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Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year.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
January Aldrin Regina Valdez 02/04/2025
playing america in spring m.s. RedCherries 02/03/2025
Things Said When He Was Gone Blanche Taylor Dickinson 02/02/2025
The Negro’s “America” Frank Barbour Coffin 02/01/2025
The Creek in Shirley Canyon Robert Hass 01/31/2025
Pears Catherine Bowman 01/30/2025
Apophasis Now James Hannaham 01/29/2025
Poem in Which My Mother Snapped Denise Duhamel 01/28/2025
An inauspicious day from the get-go Hisham Bustani 01/27/2025
The Smile of Innocence Lucretia Maria Davidson 01/26/2025

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