poem
Volume 29, Number 2

My country calls it weeping

My country calls it sowing 
sixteen pellets in a young 

boy’s head. This is where it rains  
silver storms. Dogs bark before  

the light fractures in a thousand 
directions, seeping into azure  

fissures. My country calls it sewing 
unions. There is a pack hunting   

outside margins of civility, for the 
rain is never less than metal showers; 

even birds have learnt to read  
the language of burnt holes in 

their domain. It rains the smell of 
floras on stems of silver lava. My 

country calls it owning, the waste of 
a life if not having lived it shorter. 

And dawns whinny on rigid hooves. 
We celebrate the cracking of fire 

like it is the only substance we know. 
My country calls it elevating 

every minor to the quick level; 
the hands of silver tombs—smooth 

palms yet to learn to crush mosquitoes. 
How else will they learn to survive  

anthropological upheavals when they arrive?  
Countries such as mine deserve silver  

linings on the horizon, where they 
originated from the holes we now 

call pores. Countries such as mine 
get credited so little for inventions: 

we are the benchmarks of rain, 
the weeping silvers  

the staining nebula 
the confetti of red. 


—Sheikha A.