They tuck the women into a tiny room hand us polyester dresses with head covers My sister and I do our best to become holy in four sizes too large and enter this white marble mass that anchors the city My little sister says there’s no real muslims anywhere! And I wonder if we are the exception or the rule? It’s as if we never spent each Saturday on a small pilgrimage to Dar-al-Huda The House of Guidance a place where I’d wrap and cover and pin the only part of my appearance I thought was pretty beneath a hijab wear a black pleated skirt that never hung quite right trip over the threshold of that enlightened house where all the other girls had hadith dripping from their tongues Perhaps I’ll always be alien It takes no majesty to recognize this as we reach the entrance Two rows one for believers who come to pray one for tourists who want to see an authentic rendition of prayer under the echo of gilded vault My father goes to pray my sister follows I pause at the threshold believer on a sign in four languages What do I believe besides what my body tells me? I enter on the tourist side feeling the cool marble on bare feet the heat on the rest of my skin I watch my father and sister pray from behind a red rope They prostrate their bodies to sujood like camels stooped to drink from water Nobody would guess that I know them that I know these prayers like phases of the moon
Mosque Sheikh Zayed, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Dana Alsamsam
They tuck the women into a tiny room hand us polyester dresses with head covers My sister and I do our best to become holy in four sizes too large and enter this white marble mass that anchors the city My little sister says there’s no real muslims anywhere! And I wonder if we are the exception or the rule? It’s as if we never spent each Saturday on a small pilgrimage to Dar-al-Huda The House of Guidance a place where I’d wrap and cover and pin the only part of my appearance I thought was pretty beneath a hijab wear a black pleated skirt that never hung quite right trip over the threshold of that enlightened house where all the other girls had hadith dripping from their tongues Perhaps I’ll always be alien It takes no majesty to recognize this as we reach the entrance Two rows one for believers who come to pray one for tourists who want to see an authentic rendition of prayer under the echo of gilded vault My father goes to pray my sister follows I pause at the threshold believer on a sign in four languages What do I believe besides what my body tells me? I enter on the tourist side feeling the cool marble on bare feet the heat on the rest of my skin I watch my father and sister pray from behind a red rope They prostrate their bodies to sujood like camels stooped to drink from water Nobody would guess that I know them that I know these prayers like phases of the moon
Feature Date
- October 10, 2020
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
Copyright © 2020 by Dana Alsamsam
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Photo:
Amy Fink
Amy Fink
Dana Alsamsam is a first generation Syrian-American from Chicago and is currently based in Boston where she works in arts development. A Lambda Literary fellow, she received her MFA in Poetry from Emerson College where she was the Editor-in-Chief of Redivider and Senior Editorial Assistant at Ploughshares. Her poems are published or forthcoming in The Georgia Review, The Massachusetts Review, North American Review, The Shallow Ends, The Offing, Salamander, BOOTH, The Common and others.
Summer & Fall 2020
Everett, Washington
Editor
Keetje Kuipers
Managing Editor
Constance Hansen
Associate Editors
Emily Pittinos
Serena Solin
Jay Aquinas Thompson
Our mission remains what it has been for more than five decades. In the words of founding editor Carolyn Kizer, “We shall continue to encourage the young and the inexperienced, the neglected mature, and the rough major talents and the fragile minor ones.” We remain as committed as we were in 1959 to publishing the best poetry we can find, and to expanding the role and scope of poetry in ways both public and private, innovative and traditional, as an art and as a clear and necessary dialogue in a world overrun with noise.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
