Poem: "Land Where My Father Died" By Fatimah Asghar

land of buildings & no good manners land of sunless people & offspring of colonizers land of no spice & small pox land that killed my father & then sent back his body land where I can’t lay flowers land that will never be my home land of slaves & child workers land of prisons & taxes land that mispronounces my grief land that calls my eulogy exotic land that makes a graveyard of my other land that laughs when my people die & paints targets on my future children’s faces land that steals & says own land that says mine first land that burns & says go back land of no roots land that poisoned my mother & devoured her body land that calls me foreign land that makes my other language foreign on my tongue land that calls my women backwards & calls itself savior land that flattens cities & says homeland security land that built the first bomb & the last land that killed my father land that made me orphan of thee I sing.

Fatimah Asghar

Fatimah Asghar is a nationally touring poet, photographer and performer. While on a Fulbright studying theater in post-violent contexts she created a Spoken Word Poetry group, REFLEKS, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, PEN Poetry Series, Academy of American Poets, The Margins, and Gulf Coast. She is a Kundiman Fellow and a member of the Dark Noise Collective. Her chapbook "After" was released on Yes Yes Books fall of 2015.