boys:

the ones I grew up with

those who yelled, camel jockey
terrorist
drape-thief
who doorbell ditched at night
leaving nothing but shouting dads and shivering children

our hearts thudding in our ears
we held on to each other as baba wiped sleep from his eyes
and searched the cold wind

Why are you bothering us?


those boys, men now, came by the house
to apologize


my ears roar with the sounds of unending doorbells
as baba tells me to be more forgiving

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Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a Pashtun-American Muslim writer and poet based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She co-directs Rooted & Written at The Writers Grotto and leads writing initiatives for BIPOC writers. Her work has appeared in Rising Pheonix, Taboos & Transgressions, and others. A semifinalist for the Philip Levine Prize and University of Wisconsin’s poetry contest, she teaches at LitQuake and The Grotto. She’s currently working on a poetry collection, a new vocabulary, and a novel, The Poppy Flower.