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Dilruba Ahmed

Underground

Don’t say face of the moon, not
voice like morning dew. Instead, say hook-
in-the-tongue, try barb-in-the-flesh, 
say knife-in-the-wound.
They are turning their locks
to paint their faces 
and their daughters’ faces.
They look on as the girls regard 
their eyes in mirrors, in the long 
cracked mirror of history, and war.  
They paint themselves into existence 
inside the shuttered rooms 
of their hearts, where freedom
still bristles. They are stripping veils
from their faces and letting loose
their glossy hair. They are singing 
with their daughters, first
softly, and then loudly, in unison.
They have taken their girls 
underground. They open battered books 
to teach them letters and words
that may save them. Some shave 
their daughters’ locks so the girls might 
walk a different route each day 
with cracked books tucked into bags of apricots.  
They prepare for the minutes apart, 
the hours. They wait 
for what seems days, months, years.
But first they kiss, they embrace. 
They take one last look at each face.

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Serhiy Zhadan

Literature & Democracy

Serhiy Zhadan

“That’s the appeal of writing: you treat the world like a potential text, using it as material, setting yourself apart, stepping out.”

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