Prayer

There’s a crying janamaaz crumpled in
the rightmost drawer,
tucked away
in the ribcage of my bed

I sleep through mornings as its tassels turn into tears,
its fibres into a crusted canvas for stray dust
and beckoning calls.

In the evenings before reunions,
when my long shadow is gifted company
the janamaaz is an ironing table,
The flat metal palm burns
drooling pasts
with the setting on wool.

My eyes are on the ceiling, but there’s steam
dripping down my back
as the janamaaz begs
to call my forehead its home.

By Mariam Khan

Biography:

Mariam Khan is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, a high school student in Texas and a graduate of the Between the Lines 2020 Program at Iowa University. Her fiction has been recognized by Scholastic National Art and Writing Awards and The WEIGHT Journal. She is from Toronto, Ontario, and lives in Texas.