I worry that my friends
will misunderstand my silence
as a lack of love, or interest, instead
of a tent city built for my own mind,
I worry I can no longer pretend
enough to get through another
year of pretending I know
that I understand time, though
I can see my own hands; sometimes,
I worry over how to dress in a world
where a white woman wearing
a scarf over her head is assumed
to be cold, whereas with my head
cloaked, I am an immediate symbol
of a war folks have been fighting
eons-deep before I was born, a meteor.
—Tarfia Faizullah
—from Poem-a-Day April 10, 2018 (Academy of American Poets)
[photo: NER]
