[HE MADE A MOVIE, IT WAS A FLOP]
by FATIMAH ASGHAR
my aunt says of my dad, beetle
leaf in her teeth, chewing in
the backseat, on my way
to the airport, not enough
time to investigate. years later,
she can’t remember the plot.
only that it didn’t work, only
that he prayed and prayed
it would, only they all laughed
& still laugh now, him desperate
& in costume, only
that my forehead
is pressed to the ground now
doing the same, following
the flopping of my ancestors,
a line of duds, the dreams of my dead,
everyone’s names in lights.
[VILLAGE BOY]
by FATIMAH ASGHAR
the village never left him my aunt says of my dad, village
boy even when he left to new york. 30 years later, the village
still calls when i come, asking what i’m doing each day. my dad
apple-crisp & young, companied by the stars, walking the village.
here, in america, the city dots my dreams. skylines. what i know
best, a subway & deli. my friends listen to podcasts about village
life, our diseases sprouting from how far we moved from the fields.
i stay lusting after what is not mine, but might’ve been, my baba-village
on my baba-tongue, five knots, the story of four brothers
& a father who built it after fleeing. when my baba left, the village
celebrated, the one who traveled to america. the one who dreamed
& walked the dream. the one who died, three girls in new york, village
-less. what years went by, where i dreamed of being belonged, looked
in the mirror & saw a stranger, only to come back & see a village
of my faces, returned? oh, belonging. as gentle as an aunt who knows
a story of the one who made me. oh belonging, as sweet as the village
built by a river, everyone knowing your name, the stories of your people
the grass & cows & date trees. oh land, never leave me. please. village
me, spirits, the ones i only know from my poems, the ones who cradled
my dad into death. the jinn who guard the land & the people, village
born. oh, to be held like this. to know the curves of the trees & when
the oranges come. the earth, your earth, your ancestors’ earth, village
of me & mine, how i prayed for you, how i longed to know your name
the loss of my father’s death shadowing everything, redacting a village
& my belonging, his siblings. their prayers for me, echoing mine for them.
to think i was lost. to be found. i spent my life wanting & there it was: my village.
Fatimah Asghar, author of If They Come for Us and When We Were Sisters, is a poet, filmmaker, educator, and performer. Their literary work has been longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Carol Shields Award. They are the writer and co-creator of Brown Girls, an Emmy-nominated web series that highlights friendships between women of color. Along with Safia Elhillo, they edited Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology that celebrates Muslim writers who are also women, queer, gender-nonconforming, and/or trans. They also were a writer and co producer on Ms. Marvel on Disney +, and wrote Episode 5, Time and Again. They are an ISF and Sundance Doris Duke Fellow and a 1497 Fellow. Their second book of poetry, Daughter of the Mountains, is forthcoming July 2026.
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