Sara Shaheen

If I could reach the homeland’s wounds I would become so porous 

And absorb all the bloodied pain 

I’d offer chamomile-soaked gauze after chamomile-soaked gauze 

For the wounds wide enough for the sun 

For all the homeland’s wounds, 

seen and unseen.

In wounded fields, we grow poppies of mind 

In wounded fields, we grow poppies of mind, 

In pots, in bits, in vessels holed by dum-dum bullets

Our soul soil seeps, gets soaked in violence, 

And drinks its tea. 

We eat war three times a day, we wash in Sun, 

Water in tears, 

In salt, in stone, in wasted greenhouses, 

in each trenched wound, we grow poppies of mind, 

Tall and free and we make free.