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Little Inhabitants The poet wakes in the middle of the night to find that his room, Barely enough for his lean body, is a megacity for the little Inhabitants. Roaches are going and coming, each one with A different sense of urgency, some slow as clumps of dew, Others civil servants in love with the …

He smokes until he sees something moving in the smoke, remembers Joy like blindness: swimming at Jazeera Beach, gorging on belonging, barwaaqo, iftiin. He remembers riding through Suuqa Bakaaraha on a motorbike, held onto by women with hair trailing behind them like black smoke. It’s raining in London again, Hassan Aden Samatar sings from a …

War

When they walked into the cathedral, God watched them walk. When the bullets prepared to leave the gun, they left the gun. The prayers shielded nothing. The father against his son shielded nothing. The bullet will always obey, find a way through the body's anxious defense. I am tired of writing about my country. Every …

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