o mapa inteiro é meu espelho

Dois poemas de Fatimah Asghar traduzidos por Laura Assis

Fatimah Asghar é poeta, cineasta, educadora e performer estadunidense de origem paquistanesa e caxemira. Muçulmana e queer, tem uma obra marcada por questões de pertencimento, memória, família, migração e pelos efeitos da violência histórica sobre a experiência íntima. É autora das coletâneas de poesia If They Come for Us (2018) e Daughter of the Mountains (2026), além do romance When We Were Sisters (2022), vencedor do Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Também criou, com Sam Bailey, a websérie Brown Girls, indicada ao Emmy. “From Oil” foi publicado originalmente em If They Come for Us e “as mulheres da minha família”, publicado inicialmente na revista Poetry em 2025, posteriormente foi incluído em Daughter of the Mountains.

*

the women in my family

their names have been lost

only the winds & only the mountains

keep them. we’ve forgotten the names

of the mountains, my people, the more

we bent our knees to worship the gods 

of the city, the gods with jaguar eyes 

who sit in the smog, which could be mistaken 

for clouds but for the ink they leave 

in our lungs, rorschach paintings doctors 

dissect. what do you see? my death, certainly

but still no names of the women before

me, or the names of the mountains

& rivers, the promises my ancestors made

to the spirits & then betrayed when they fled

exchanged land for new land. what was her

name? i ask the room of my uncles &

am met with disinterest. where did she come

from? & I receive silence. that must be

it then: she came from air. from wind.

from the earth, stilling to quiet. & in

the right moment, when the sun hits

the water, when no one is around

when i can see the mountains breaking

the sky, i can almost hear them, the women

in my family, the ones who remember

their names. 

Oil

We got sent home early

& no one knew why. I think we

are at war! I yelled to my sister

knapsacks ringing

against our backs. I copy

-catted from Frances

who whispered it when the teachers

got silent. Can’t blame

me for taking a good idea.

I collect words where I find them.

I’m young & no one around

knows where my parents are from.

A map on our wall & I circle all

the places I want to be. My auntie,

not-blood but could be,

runs the oil through my scalp.

Her fingers play the strands of my hair.

The house smells like badam.

My uncle, not-blood but could be,

soaks them in a bowl of water.

My auntie says my people might

be Afghani. I draw a ship on the map.

I write Afghani under its hull. I count

all the oceans, blood & not-blood,

all the people I could be,

the whole map, my mirror.

The kids at school ask me where I’m from & I have no answer.

I’m a silent girl, a rig ready to blow. The towers fell two weeks

ago & I can’t say blow out loud or everyone will hate me.

They all make English their own, say that’s the bomb.

I know that word’s not meant for me but I collect words

where I find them. I practice at night, the crater

it makes of my mouth. I whisper it to my sheets,

bombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbombbomb

a little symphony, so round. I look up & make sure no one heard.