Ritual of an Immigrant’s Daughter – Zaynah Monsoor

April 27, 2026

She summarized me in levels of rebellion,
with moments of sabotage that I provoked her

heart with. I told her I was going on a date, and
she asked me if I was in love with him.

Her tears ran ropes down her cheeks in dark
lazy river beds– waterfalls of black charcoal.

It was a shrike on my dignity like a split lip,
blood dribbling out lame. Still, I bit mine.

I wonder if, somehow, in the last few years,
I forgot how to love her, in all her broken

English, her tantalizing eyes adorned by
crow’s feet, her grey hair dyed red with Henna.

Somehow, I hated her wrinkled hands and I
regret that I don’t regret the spite I willingly

thrust onto her; the pain and pleasure combined
like a peach pit in my throat, apologies I knew

I would never surrender. My mother is the smite
on my mind that I perniciously justify to spite.

If I could pull all the hair out of my head,
I would give myself over to the vandalism.

Instead I take American breaths out of my American
lungs and force-feed them into her Bengali mouth.