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Payee

Jessica Abughattas

October 7, 2024

We went one by one, then all at once, we left our father’shouse. Went outside and returned, sleeping children. Forgetful then we remembered. We believed in our father. We believed our father in heaven. We left the house of our father. We left the house and our father is in heaven. We left heaven and went to work in America. We toiled and were paid by our father. We unionized and made our father cry uncle. We were children. Wewere not wrong. We lived under our grandmother’s sofacushion. We lived in a tract suburb made of the sameidentical house. We took a limestone brick and placed itin our house in the suburbs. Our house in the suburbswas pink with palm trees and pink with limestone. Ourhouse in heaven. Our house in America where weworked for our father. Our house in heaven where Godwas limestone. Our limestone brick we planted in ouryard without a flag. Our flagless yard in the suburbs ofheaven where we only lived for God.

Jessica AbughattasJessica Abughattas is the author of Strip (University of Arkansas Press, 2020). Her poems can be found in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere.


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