Salif says you got fat in detention. Brother,how do you laugh with your teeth showing?We starved you in Alabama, they burned downyour house, your motorcycle, costs your whole pocketto call Africa, you won’t call your mother,can’t afford three dollar tears. You thoughtAMERICA! BRIGHT COASTS NEW DREAMS did wehandcuff you too hard at JFK? A judgein Las Cruces reads the holy word in Micah,sets fire to David’s cities of refuge. Youread every night I look to the hillsfrom where my help will come you lookto the wall and see twenty men dressedlike you, concrete and nothing. The Jersey shorefarther out of reach than home, Omar faces east,his head to the floor, Allah hu’Akbar. You answer, Dieuest le seul and we share the same sky. You have not seen itin sixteen months. The sky declares the glory of God,you rise before dawn to make breakfastfor your bunkmates, five hours for a dollar, ifyou give yourself to the hungry; work hardand learn English; confess, atone: I VIOLATEDYOUR BORDERS; plead asylum; may the wordsof my lips be acceptable to you; behave!—your night will become as bright as noon.You will leave this place, work hard,(avoid politicsfor fear of fire)love mercy when you see a blue sky,walk humbly with God. Brother,it is your turn. Walk away from the dustand the stone walls that held you.Write a new psalm.
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About the writer
Maya Wahrman. Maya Wahrman is a Client Advocate at the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund in Trenton, after working for two years at Princeton University’s Office of Religious Life developing a new program on religion and forced migration. She graduated from Princeton's Department of History, with certificates in Creative Writing and Near Eastern Studies. Wahrman has had opinion pieces published in the History News Network and the English and Hebrew editions of Haaretz, and has had poetry published in Lilith Magazine, Love, Struggle, Resist, Fifth Wednesday Journal, The Copperfield Review, the Jewish Currents Poetry Anthology Urge, Califragile, Sweet Tree Review, Heartwood Literary Magazine, and Nassau Literary Review.
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