Mother Song

Zuleyha Ozturk Lasky

Lotus in my palm
unfurling like an umbrella
as you draw with henna

adding vines as garlands
around the lotus—repeating verses
about resurrecting like locusts.

I crush a camphor leaf,
cinnamon like chaffinch’s
pupils, still with a trill

towards a song mocking
whittling fists on my knees,
رَبَّهُۥٓ أَنِّى مَغْلُوبٌۭ

begins your favorite prayer.
I’d like to forget
the things you’ve said, crushed

leaves in your palm, later
drowning in a teacup.
You wanted virgin.

You wanted a twirling
skirt in a canyon
filled to the brim

with rainwater.
I wish you’d remember
drawing those petals

as I felt your warm cheek,
a lotus breathing in
my palm. My veins

like yours, roots,
skeleton of a fish
found on a camphor leaf

I crush. I hear
the circling
feathers above me.

Was I sewn
into the same eyelet?
Tell me if you see

my hands built
with broken sticks
kindling a fire.

See the heart hardening
into stone? A terrible
sound perfected like a prayer.

Zuleyha Ozturk Lasky is a poet currently living in Tallahassee working towards an MFA in poetry at Florida State University. She is the co-founder of Leavings and an assistant poetry editor at Narrative Magazine. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Adroit, Palette, Small Orange, Epiphany, Salamander, Cream City Review, Nimrod, SWIMM, and CALYX Journal.