In an Arabic class I wrote a poem
        about an abyss

I’d read about a man who fell
        in a crevasse when my sister calls

I fear her stalker a soldier
        instead it’s news of

the boy she likes and staying
        up from iftar to suhoor

listening to their favorite loves songs
        the man I love lying

is playing in the background of a zoom vigil
        for Palestine

we’re not fighting I’m praying
        in his lap

for an apology and he’s giving it
        and he’s leaving

for a party and a woman
        on the zoom call says

we started with a seed and now
        I’m gonna leave you with a garden

we planted all these seeds together
        a ceremony of our hands

and the earth and my sister is calling and
        I’m in Arabic class again

an abyss expelling wind and
        a crevasse opening

between zoom poems and collective grief
        and watermelon seeds