In Retracing a Memory

by Aleah Bantas

there is a photograph of a girl in a white dress

inside an album, kept only by a plastic rack

I grew up remembering how to pick cotton,

separate the seeds, each one,

fruit in search of an embrace

in the verses of Mahmoud Darwish,

on a river dying of thirst.

After class of halaqah, reading the Qur'an,

a white face, eyes narrowed into a slit.

Into the echo of a daughter singing.

I do not mind being named after a flower,

for it holds a thought of tenderness,

the aftertaste of nectar on the tongue.

Not of conquests, of peace agreements

typewritten in birth certificates,

taking shelter under an awning

of coconut fronds.

Listen, I'm trying not to be a poet,

to the screech of a gunmetal,

a poet is nothing but a prey.