We Fuel Us Clairvoyant

We take off our headscarves. We shut blinds. We take wing

after wing and boil us. We burn paper as fuel for the samovar.

No longer we pray in mosques, no longer we sin, instead we king

our sky as clairvoyant. Break our bones like reeds to sing

until we return to Medusa’s mausoleum. Our hands appear

to take off our headscarves. We shut blinds. We take wing

after wing: burn over sky, we snow us in—a mother sting

in our womb. We bury Istanbul. We forget our wooden hair.

No longer we pray. No longer we sin in mosques. Instead, we king

our grandmother gutting peppers. We pocketknife. We shrink

our sky as clairvoyant. We pluck our lives. We chore. We tear.

We take off the blinds and shut our heads. Scarfed, we break wing

after chicken wing cooked beside stuffed peppers we bring

us to clairvoyance. We burn joyous. We wear tight the fear

of mosques. Prayers tell us to no longer sin. Instead, we king

ourselves. We exist in every story censored, every surgical string

to enclose us. We milk us sour and burn us as fuel for the samovar.

We take off our headscarves. We shut their blinds. Take our wings

off no mosque prayers. We sin longer! No longer do we king.

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 the literary magazine Leavings (leavingslitmag.com) and an assistant poetry editor at Narrative Magazine.