SEED
Always ready
to give,
the men in my family know
anger like an open palm.
Last week, brother threw
a punch, & i decided
not to break him. Last night,
baba went in on
me: my lack of
a job.
a wife.
a god.
i love
to tell him that they are one
in the same. When i meet my mother,
i talk to her like a man
talks to himself: full
of another’s simmer
slow & wayward
as we wait for
our blood to dry,
our fathers to call us home
Tariq Luthun is a Palestinian-American writer, community organizer, & strategist from Detroit, MI. He is currently an MFA candidate for poetry in the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Among other things, Luthun is Social Director of Organic Weapon Arts, and a deep-dish pizza evangelist. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Offing, Winter Tangerine Review, and Button Poetry, among other publications and anthologies. He can also best be described as Drake falsetto-rapping Edward Said’s “Orientalism.”