Hajer Requiq
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My mother is peeling clementines in the kitchen.

My father is praying duha[1] outside.

This now feels enough. Feels large.

So large I carry it with both hands to the centrepiece table,

make sure we all share a bite.

When I overhear your cries,

I prescribe morning to you. Lots of it.

“Repeat after me:

Alhamdulillah.[2]

Alhamdulillah.

Alhamdulillah.” 

I take you by the arm, and we both give in to the smell of gratitude

from my mother's reamer.

Together, we peel clementines.

Seed out the present.

Learn to make juice from whichever hurts us.

If only there was more of my mother in the world,

more of our kitchen and orange fingertips,

how safe everyone would feel even sitting

around their own remains.

You don’t mind the syrup around your mouth.

“Leave it.

I am one grief away from swallowing this moment.”

Earlier today, I gave you three spoonfuls of praise to God.

Now, you're starting to feel better,

no longer wonder where the rest of you lies,

where your good days are stored.

From the courtyard, my father's prayer enters us

like October,

like clementine zest,

like “This is enough.”

When it is noon, we throw our tired bodies across the bed,

mouths unwashed,

mouths sticky with Alhamdulillah.

There is so much now in the way we cuddle and sleep.

How we always think the morning

is farther than our feet.

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[1] A voluntary prayer in Islam, performed between dawn and noon.

[2] Translates from Arabic to “Praise be to God.”

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