American Muslim chilren
Hey Ayat, we were an odd
couple, haunting the library
for magical books,
deciding how and where
we wanted to work…
Our symbiosis
Your linguistic ticket to
4th grade status—
and my meal ticket
Hey Aayat, forget that
you worked hard
raising your reading
from 1.4
to 4.
Forget how
You sweated in your
Hijab,Cali sun streaming
through the hallway where we worked
Your seat wet with sweat
when I insisted you break for water.
Forget how my eyes welled up when…
When you read the word “chlorophyll”
with
a li’l Arabic seasoning.
Forget our enchanted
moment, our turning point,
finding a book
on your birthplace, your
religion
Hey Ayat, I apologize—
It’s America first and
American Heroes must
Kill
Kids like you in Yemen—
But, “God will sort it out…”
When they get to Heaven.
And one day you’ll understand
Why
American heroes kill for pipe-
lines…
© 2016. Raymond Nat Turner,The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed performing artist and educator, and an official in the National Writers Union.
Find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
The mythology of Ethiopian independence is an impediment to understanding the current situation.
Author and organizer Frank Chapman joins Margaret Kimberley and Danny Haiphong to discuss his new book Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism.
Despite U.S. sanctions, Cuba has succeeded in treating covid and has developed five different vaccines that are widely accepted by its population.
In 2021 the peoples of Latin American nations defied Washington by choosing the governments of their choice.
