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
If Trump asks congress for approval to wage a war on Iran, he will probably get it.
“So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they've got. Attack Iran.”
Somaliland aspires to be an “independent” US military enclave in the Horn of Africa.
Minnesota’s progressive myth shatters as its racial gaps in income, education, and housing eclipse even Deep South states, and right wing whites turn to violence against their own people.
The Middle East’s only real weapons of mass destruction are Zionism, U.S. imperialism, and Israel’s nuclear arsenal—a toxic trifecta fueling endless war.
