"Ideology" by Aria Aber

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( September 9, 2019 [Ideology]( [Aria Aber]( three girls ago bloodroot: it was Eid Al-Adha: a man I loved shoved my face into German reeds I can still feel his sweat when I unsleep: the cleave of his breath-lice warming chains of my necklace I was without people oh so summerful I invented my girlhood I languaged myself a knife-body yet all uncles said I’m badly woven: bad muslin: say forgiveness comes easy say freckledirt buried the faces of my sisters: lakewarm & plentiful— we kiss we touch we Magdalene each other it’s true during the adhan I pulled down my tights nylon black like the chador of my mother I licked from my yesterlove the salt licked real good—to pluck it again I must whorl ad nauseam for the addendum of flesh the soft sumac, cottonwood hard as the nipples he circled we are singing it’s spring and God to my song is unlistening, unlistening o Maryam o Miriam o Mary we are undying we are not gone are not slayed we are unslaying—our hand wields this life and I ply myself out come here between my legs come in all are welcome who believe [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( Copyright © 2019 Aria Aber. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 9, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. [Aber reads "Ideology."]( About This Poem “Inspired by [Lucie Brock-Broido](, I wrote this for my own girl-self and yours. The Magdalenes of us, both the apostles and the whores, shunned from our communities. Loving is good, wanting to be loved is good—knowing this doesn’t make you any less Muslim than the hypocritical uncles who judged you and called you ‘bad,’ the cousins who called you ‘slut,’ the neighbors who watched you and ‘shamed’ your family, who called you ‘impure.’ Integrity to the self is as pure as integrity to your culture. I want to tell the daughters of the future: you can be anything you want. Your desire is not a sin.” —Aria Aber [Aria Aber]( Aria Aber is the author of Hard Damage (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. [Hard Damage]( Poetry by Aber [Hard Damage]( (University of Nebraska Press, 2019) "Dove, Interrupted" by Lucie Brock-Broido [read-more]( "100 Bells" by Tarfia Faizullah [read-more]( "Girl Country" by Ansley Moon [read-more]( September Guest Editor: Eduardo C. Corral Thanks to [Eduardo C. Corral](, author of Guillotine, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2020, who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a [Q&A with Corral]( about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our [guest editors for the year.]( Your Support Makes Poem-a-Day Possible Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. This free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on the weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. [make a one-time donation]( [illustration]( [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038