Pianissimo by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Image: Zeloot
Pianissimo
If you say it softly/if you linger in the vowels/there is precedent/in tajweed the tradition/is incantatory/even though you don’t/call it song/if you
count/six beats for every long/alef/like lifting a prayer up to the sky/like hoisting
a body above the ruins/and the arms raised up in praise/in grieving/praise/if you
choose/a softer word here/read a poem about/love instead/if you add the word/if
you loosen the grip/if you say it/ in Arabic/say it in Arabic/in Arabic whisper/choose
the one that rhymes/even if /it is reserved for the dead/if you sing/sing it a little/the
crowd begging/the sky/begging the collapsed/begging the earth to stop caving
in/blessing the baby delivered/again/from the rubble/beseeching the walls/the crowd
passing the newborn hand over hand over/heads garlanded in concrete dust/Allahu
Akbar always/translated as indictment/instead say/something soft/stretch the
syllables/let us hear
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry: Water & Salt, winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award; 2023’s Kaan and Her Sisters, from Trio House Press; and Something About Living, which won the 2022 Akron Poetry Prize and was published by the University of Akron Press this year. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in journals including Michigan Quarterly Review, the Nation, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. She was the 2022 curator of the translation series "Poems from Palestine" at the Baffler magazine. She is currently curating a regular feature on Palestinian writing at Words Without Borders, entitled “Against Silence.”
