Winner (tie), 2023 Dwarf Stars Award
Across my father’s death there is a curtain
past which I can’t write, my own words
can’t carry and I must rely on others’
I believe in the graves of those I’ve buried.
They are the doors I’ve walked through
into greater bravery, into fury.
Rasha Abdulhadi is a queer Palestinian Southerner living with Long Covid. Their writing has recently appeared in Anathema, FIYAH, Strange Horizons, Poem-a-Day, carte blanche, Shade Journal, and Mizna. Their work is anthologized in Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (forthcoming), Halal if You Hear Me, and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler. Their Elgin Award nominated small poetry book is who is owed springtime.
