I my land.
Tomorrow end my poem.
Will I see you there, ?
when you return?
the war and my poem.
young departing.
Will you return?
your name a home.
I hear
this language , uncountried
I have your name .
a luxury drought.
language , alone my heart a greeting
leaves me a stranger; no one
beneath us hunger
No one is mine.
words from this
Earth hungers for our limbs.
remain here, to ? .
salvaged words unravelling.
there peaceful, victorious?
Tomorrow will end and I’ll return
I long for morning my homeland.
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her first full-length collection of poems, WATER & SALT (Red Hen, 2017) won the Washington State Book Award for Poetry. She is also the author of two chapbooks, ARAB IN NEWSLAND, selected by poet January Gil-O'Neill for the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize, and the LETTERS FROM THE INTERIOR (Diode Editions, 2019). Her essays have been published in Al-Ahram Weekly, Kenyon Review Online, Poetry Northwest, and The Rumpus. Her poems have received the Robert Lawson Literary Award, and multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Most recently, her poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Cordite Review, New England Review, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day feature. Tuffaha is a Hedgebrook alum and a recipient of a 2019 Artist Trust Fellowship. She lives in Redmond, Washington with her family.
Twitter: @LKTuffaha
www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com
Photo by Infomastern on Foter.com / CC BY-SA