Fighting Father-Deficiency
Take me back to when I was 7. Back to whenI lost a tooth trying to bite into the last
crumb of home. Back to sunny mornings,watermelons, the adhan. We were the
bastards of heaven, the foster kids of springand summer, breastfed by joy alone.
How we bloomed amid bombs, curled likemistletoe around muzzles, made it
our mission to be beautiful. I want to startlooking for you, baba, in the Quran,
between the ayat, in my mouth whereyour supplicant index is still lodged.
Still finding your beads in my food,under my foot, the sound
of your crystal God crushing everywhere.I eat dust, shower with shards,
just to be reminded I am Muslim.Have we always prayed like that?
Like the abyss was two inches awayfrom the qibla. Like the ending
was wherever God was taking a strollthat day. Listen, we are not lost — yet.
I can see land. I can see land in the cornerof his smile. I want piles of dishes,
laundry to dry, and the permission to starta home some town far from this
wound. The way he and I call pain by thepet-name, how we parent anything that
hurts us. Have they always been related,I wonder, the body and the bullet?
The day you left us I learnt that skin is noplace for sharp objects like your name.
But I will call on you. I promise, baba:“Come. Here is a chair in the middle of
separation. Here is a sajjada to swapfor a map. Here is one long summer
stretching from my hand to your hand.Come back, baba, back to when I was 7.
Back to full sets of teeth and homesthat don’t cling to our gums.
Back to when we shared spacebesides this poem.”
About Hajer Requiq
Hajer Requiq is an emerging female poet from Tunisia, who has recently been selected as a finalist in the 2026 Frontier Poetry Debut Chapbook Prize as well as in the 2025 Button Poetry Chapbook Contest and shortlisted for the 2025 Foster Poetry Prize by Contemporary Verse 2. She has also been selected as the runner-up for the “Connective, Uncontainable” Fall 2025 Writing Contest by The Capilano Review and longlisted for the 2025 Gearhart Poetry Contest by Southeast Review. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland, Chestnut Review, and Only Poems, among others.