“When the Sky Is No Longer” from Something About Living a poem by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.

Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.
Published by University of Akron Press April 02, 2024.

When the Sky Is No Longer

by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

 

a womb, prayers now besieged

inside your throat hum over whistles

and shrieks—the long how

puncturing what was. 

 

Silence is the first casualty. 

You no longer fear the clamor,

not because you are brave, but

because you’ve learned that death arrives 

noiselessly, hovering

in the bowels of a missile,

 

that the clamor means

you are alive and someone else is dying. 

You note the bleakness of your own heart 

wanting to live in spite of this.

 

“When the Sky Is No Longer” from Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha.
Published by University of Akron Press April 02, 2024.
Copyright © 2024 by Lena Khalf Tuffaha.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

 https://poems.com/poem/when-the-sky-is-no-longer/#featured-poet

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