Dust-Bound
They talked to me, I folded a shirt
taking rest between words and opened the window—
We live on the bend of a second,
the curve of the second A in “again.”
Tomorrow,
however different,
I will open the window.
We know that we are afraid.
That the leather-bound books we once collected
now have to be sold. And so does the apartment where the
children grew.
We’ve always moved. Look how tall this tree is.
Madina Tuhbatullina is a poet from Turkmenistan, whose work has been
published or is forthcoming in New American Writing, Spoon River Poetry
Review, Aster(ix) and elsewhere. Her poetry collection Tender Knots was
named a finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Immigrant Writing Series.
Tuhbatullina is a Creative Writing MFA candidate at the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas and a Managing Editor at Interim.