What a frightening way to say bismillah
With a daggered America softly on your
Tongue.
A heathen harakat
The descendants of Hoover
Know the steps to make ablution,
They wash my sister’s blood off before they join the congregation.
Laying the smartphone to ask “Where is east?”
The arrow
Lurches from one side to the next,
Like the door of my cousin’s cell.
Here the clang rings
Like the call to prayer.
As Allah gave Islam to the eye
Of the desert,
So He gave Islam to Rahway prison.
A mass incarceration madhab.
The informants are in our masjid
Asking us to bear names.
This is not what my aunt meant
When she named her son “Slave of the All-Seeing”
We have been stretching smoke
Since they turned our
Antecedents
To incense