On the streets of Brighton Beach, When we swing from fire escapes and jump on the hoods of cars, We own the block through the force of our play And the clicking and clacking of our tongues. Ah! The power of ten children with their own language! It is enough. We are our own gang. Self-sufficient when we are not bound to school, We exist happily on fragmented languages. The bread crumb of slang from the many streets We grew up in: Kabul, Mazar, Jalalabad, Riyadh, Jeddah, and Brooklyn. Our language is the roof we carry over our heads – Even when we are separated into different classes at school. If only mothers would let us be! We’d rather stretch our weekends and wrap it across the belly of the year. We’d rather dangle out everyday on the fireescapes of the second-floor mosque, Spill the Khutba onto the sweating concrete by opening the windows wide. Then jump onto the sidewalk, align our velvet prayer mats next to parked cars and play Imam and Ummah as passerbys gawk at the magic of our “flying carpets” And at one five-year old brother Serious faced, hand over ear, Singing out the call to prayer with a sugarsweet throat. We quit school! We quit suspecting lunch-ladies of slipping in slivers of swine While we aren’t looking! We are willing to live within the bubble of cousins praying or gossiping In wild tongue flips as neighbor children stare in awe. When their mouths ache from the strain of our language, We blow kisses at them. We have won another battle of the streets, but still our mothers Want us to clean our rooms and fathers demand our report cards! What choice do we have? In the day, our mothers are the sun and at night our fathers. To mark the celestial transition, mothers set in the kitchen An hour before fathers come home. They hide behind the steam of cooking While we children stand in line with colorful plastic combs in hand – Waiting our turn by the only mirror we can reach on our own. Later, we visit them to approve us and prepare our welcome for fathers. Zohra Saed - Spring 2017 Issue
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