Of His Names We Remember,

by Hajjar Baban

nothing

My silence maker, He who knows

of chance & capture. He who assigns
a death for breakfast. He whose name we left
out & replaced of estrangement—
                                                       My God, He who got the whole
story, He who knew & didn’t interfere, He who watched. He who raced to run the image from my head. He
                           who made
all my women sick & my Father unspeaky. He who know. He who watched. He who probably thought about
                            us.
                                                                                                            My wide borrowed mercy forgot these names:
The One that the state of non-existence is impossible for Him.
                         The One who does not need the creation             but creates.
The creator of Death. The One who the count of things are known to Him—
                                                                                                           my forever aloneness for You
                                                                                                                         my wrong-forgiving family
                                                                                                                                      my praying stopped
                                                                                                                                                  my brother gone
            The One who watched. He who witnessed. And He who know nothing needed to be
saved.

organ origins

by Hajjar Baban

it works. i give it to everyone i meet. i have a liver

and your son doesn’t know          what
to do with it the saying goes, ‘i’ll eat your liver’

but first, he’d have to have it       pick a season
to set it in, we all wonder how the ladies livers

look i have lots of family. they had lots of hearts
some land where none of their own was from you’re my liver

cuz i know i can’t see you & didn’t know what you were for
until i asked. i once held my [                ] til it broke my own.

Hajjar Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish poet. She’s a current First Wave Scholar at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where she studies creative writing, Arabic, and Persian. Her work has appeared in Foundry, The Offing, New Delta Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Radius Lit. She spends most of her time avoiding running from herself.