Author: Naseem Rine-Reesha

“I find again what cannot kill / or alter my power, …”

“Grave foes, both / But they want peace // Sign to agree: …”

“I stop before a huge, twisted old oak tree sprouting from the white plane of someone’s lawn. Snow dusts the tops of its branches, which weave their jagged way into night. Reaching outward. They remind me of an illustration of dendrites in a biology textbook. Nerve ends stretching toward a stimulus.”

“… this is my army’s eternal slogan, / this is my migrants’ marching song.”

“Tell me that this is a dream, teach the proper / nerve to pinch—show a path to lucidity …”