this isn't the time for this poem but it is

i wish the adhan would cease 
and all the churches would 

turn into pretty museums
a memory for the ornamental stories

we make up and believe
and teach our children to teach 

make up another 
about a mother who gave birth

to a daughter 
we’ll say this is the child who healed 

and turned all the wild into wine
i believe i believed in miracles 

once upon a time
a platter of fish to feed a nation

and this one right here is another
when i look out at the Mediterranean

i imagine a woman walking the length
of water 

she’ll be thirty-three maybe
she’ll be shaping wood work 

in the shade in the shape of trees 
her palms and feet barely marked by metal

she’ll be in love with her own body
and she won’t promise me anything

she won’t die for my sins
and won’t ask me to obey

she’ll say the whole point of living
is that eventually we stop.

---

Recipient of the 2019 Edward Stanley award for poetry, Rewa Zeinati is the author of the poetry chapbook, Bullets & Orchids, and the founder of the literary magazine, Sukoon. Her work can also be found in various journals and anthologies based in the US, UK, Australia and Arab-speaking regions. Originally from Lebanon, she currently considers Metro Detroit her new home.

Art: Molly Dunham