Afghanistan news has covered my head with a pillowcase.
An afghan is no longer a woolen blanket
but a human being living with death.
A girl, the sun of her
life lost in darkness, young girl,
is peeled like an orange at sunset.
Here are children running out of childhood,
being caught and caught—taken
for early marriage.
Afghani mother, grandmother,
each may be held in this shadow:
someone puts a chair-leg on her foot, pressing.
She really needs to wail, but can’t move or speak—
under her burqa.
Kabul Airport has become the body wrapped in pain.
A swarm, a flood, explosions,
a human hurricane whirling in chaos
searches for safe passage.
It’s that feeling
of your raised hands in surrender,
up against the wall
shot twice with a nail gun.
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Tamam Kahn is the author two books on women of early Islam. Untold, Monkfish Books, and Fatima’s Touch, Ruhaniat Press. Both won International Book Awards. Tamam read her poetry at the Shift Network Mystics Summit February, 2021. She lives in the San Francisco, California area.
Photo by Joel Heard.
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