We were boiling bananas on the roof of our house.
Mother’s laughter clutched the heart of my ears.
She was gossiping with a neighbor.
Mother was storytelling, sweet as poetry. I loved
to watch her tongue play the music of conversation.
They worked on their knees, their noses colored
by wood smoke. Boiling bananas was like a prayer.
We whispered, sang with faces lifted up, we made art
through peeling bananas, slicing them into pieces
to boil on the fire, hoping for a kiss on a cheek
from a bird; an old hymn bathing our exhausted souls.
At the roof’s edge, I overlooked a cavernous grotto,
and I saw God cooking for children like me. I watched
him prepare the dinner table for them in heaven,
a kingdom of mercy. I stretched my arms to touch
the magic, then ran to my mother, whimpering
that I saw God cooking for the children. She smiled
but continued talking with her neighbor. I yelled
at my mother for attention, pointing, but she just
smiled. I kept watching God make delicious food
for one hundred children gathered on their knees
around him, longing in awe. I waved to them,
but they didn’t notice me. I imagined the smell
from our rooftop carried a kind of hope.
Under my bare feet, bananas peels and two bowls,
one for us and the other for the hungry people
in our neighborhood. It became a ritual ever since
one hundred children had died of hunger,
one hundred innocent souls vanished. I swear
I saw God cooking for them, but no one
believed me; they just kept smiling.

Amirah al-Wassif is an award-winning poet. Her books include her poetry collection For Those Who Don’t Know Chocolate was published in February 2019 by Poetic Justice Books & Arts. Her illustrated children’s book, The Cocoa Boy and Other Stories, was published in February 2020. Her latest poetry collection, How to Bury a Curious Girl, was published by Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company.

Her poem “Hallucinations” was nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Rhysling Award. Her poems have appeared in several print and online publications including South Florida Poetry, Birmingham Arts Journal, Hawaii Review, The Meniscus, Chiron Review, The Hunger, Writers Resist, Right Now.