lament for seven songbirds 

Bushra Mustafa-Dunne 

We are seven souls in one vessel: Selma, Ibrahim, Aiman, And four nameless – slipping in through
Mama’s tears Tiny fingers clutching black حرير 1 nestled Selma’s روح2 in their palms (I ought to give
birth to them soon) You, I miscarried. You shaped my insides, I held Your motherlessness Your
flushed smiles became you,

You outgrew: Cracked open. I’m growing a womb again: soft pomegranate husk, fig flesh from
between the نهرين 3 you had dried up. I am heedless of the first womb – she who gifted me seven
songbirds. (I am still six with tiny hands curled on her chest, inhaling souls that could fit between
my fingers) Yet more heedless of the رحم 4 He who said to the songbirds ‘Be’ and they were

ascended to a shade that never wanes from fruit trees ever-bearing womb-fruit over rivers of milk
and wine and honey. 

1 Silk; pronounced ḥarīr in Arabic 2 Spirit/soul; pronounced rūḥ in Arabic 3 Two rivers (the Tigris
and the Euphrates), alluding to the ‘land between the two rivers’ - present day Iraq; pronounced
nahrayn. 4 Literally meaning womb, but here specifically alluding to the root word for God’s names
of Mercy and Compassion; pronounced raḥam

By Bushra Mustafa-Dunne, in A Kaleidoscope of Stories: Muslim Voices in Contemporary Poetry (Lote Tree Press, 2020)  www.lotetreepress.com