ghazal for Mama's eyes by banah el ghadbanah

Grey satellites in Baghdad, Inanna returns

and the sun beams behind mama’s eyes

Calamites in the desert, a storm brews in Damascus,

and darkness ruins dreams in mama’s eyes

Winter fog remembers our country; exile abandons beauty

I find forgotten queens in mama’s eyes

Shadows and daybreak fight a war

and misfortune glitters green in mama’s eyes

Our uncle says she practices a deranged kind of Islam

I pray with no scarf and gather yasmeen in mama’s eyes

My guidebook and beginning, the women’s only

beach in Abu Dhabi, pristine in mama’s eyes

In love with the music of the water,

I swam out too far, unseen in mama’s eyes

She circled the whales around me,

begged me to come home; sixteen in mama’s eyes

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BANAH EL GHADBANAH is the author of La Syrena: Visions of a Syrian Mermaid from Space which won the Diverse Voices Prize from Dzanc Books in 2022. They are published in Mizna, Afghan Punk Magazine, Poetry Northwest, the Women's Review of Books, and more. They have another book called Ululating from the Underground: Syrian Women’s Protests under Siege forthcoming with SUNY Press

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