by Tamam Kahn
 |
Female students are stopped by Taliban security at a university in Kabul, on 21 December 2022 (AFP via Middle East Eye) |
We the Taliban
will make you
go quiet.
We want
an empty blackboard.
We the Taliban
are erasing the rights
of each one
with breasts
and a vagina
and a clitoris.
Each girl-student and
female professor
splashes silenced outrage
into a ruptured world,
zig-zags suspense
back and forth
across her mind,
hides a spaded heart
raw with hiccups.
Each one cracks open
a brain-leak
of stories and poems,
stashed backpacks
of notebooks filled with
foundational work,
knowledge, science—
all soon to be
academic ditch-litter.
go quiet.
We want
an empty blackboard.
We the Taliban
are erasing the rights
of each one
with breasts
and a vagina
and a clitoris.
Each girl-student and
female professor
splashes silenced outrage
into a ruptured world,
zig-zags suspense
back and forth
across her mind,
hides a spaded heart
raw with hiccups.
Each one cracks open
a brain-leak
of stories and poems,
stashed backpacks
of notebooks filled with
foundational work,
knowledge, science—
all soon to be
academic ditch-litter.
Tamam Kahn is the author two books on women of early Islam. Untold, A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad, (Monkfish Books, 2010), and Fatima’s Touch, (Ruhaniat Press, 2016). Both won International Book Awards. Tamam believes that sharing the lives of women, famous or in difficulty, helps bring awareness and change into today’s difficult times. She lives near San Francisco, California.