A bowl of water. Wheat or bread. Hyacinth flower.
skin, my padar’s entire. Sprays of pine. Candles. A mirror.
That’s the way we wanted it. Was that the way we wanted it?
the cleaved window, madaar replies: pray for money, jaane man.
I’d surrender all my singed days for dollar bills or afterbirth.
but I know God is buried with the worms in the dirt.
Aria Aber was born to Afghan parents in Germany, and now lives in New York, where she is an MFA candidate in poetry and Writers in Public Schools fellow at NYU. Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Review, The Journal, The Margins, Best British Poetry, and others. She has been awarded fellowships from Dickinson House and Kundiman.