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​East Fork:

A Journal of the Arts​​


Maira Faisal

Meri Dua


​​Fajr, the dawn prayer

On a jai namaz, you once

schooled how we sprung from clay,

the sun ascended with Bilal’s1 azan,

sawab was secured through kindness.

I try to recall those times now,

as your eyes kaleidoscope with tears

on that same jai namaz,

questioning what it all had been for.


Dhuhr, the noon prayer

but i wonder if, because these borrowed words are weak, despite assimilating for decades, model civilians,


having forsaken dreams for the sake of the children,

i’ll close the golden door before it can close on me.


Asr, the midday prayer

Strident bombs and bullets and words and whips

char, corrode, weathered skin ashen crimson,

taciturn, rasping breath escaping lips.


Kashmir; Palestine; Afghanistan; Iraq; Syria;

Uighur; Rohingya; April 3, 2018; Christchurch;

post-9/11 hate crimes; French Islamophobia;


Papers display not names, but heads,

of those no longer children,

their blood written and read.


Magrib, the sunset prayer

My bravest feat: blinking open

my eyes for sixteen years,

faith over fear, despite commotion

and how seldom the opposition cares.


And as the martyred sun’s last rays bathe

murmuring lips and cupped hands,

I beg the praying wraiths

to defy, not defer, for we are sand:


toiled with enough to split,

still, melding together like glass,

fragile and shattering to cut,

forged by silent castes.


Pen fairytales into this story sans any,

cruel world unable to break us

enough to steal our humanity.


Isha’a, the evening prayer

Well-versed we were not born to die—

screeches claw sulphured air,

pleading for parents—

scorching hands and


alcohol clutch gored bodies—


we clamor, cry, for

help, awareness, kindness

they stride away from husks.


Mama, when I cry with you,

it is not because of you.

I cry for you and the children I may

never dare to have.








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1 Hazrat Bilal ibn-Rabah was a companion to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)







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