pocket children

 
The profile of a woman's head from behind, her blond hair encircled by a red cloth and secured in a bun. She wears a gold earing and patterned collared shirt. She stands in a field of tall, yellow grass looking at distant green trees.

“The Golden Earring” by Najib Joe Hakim

there is a woman in my dream, shimmering 
in thin prairie sun, standing still as stone
in wind that bends wheat to its knees

the patch pockets of her long apron are faces
of children, a boy, a girl, whipstitched to coarse
cotton, neither seeming to mind the task

of tending to hands or seed, bits of bread
for morning magpies, an empty spool, laundry pegs
they are silent, still as water, settled and orderly

on the woman’s narrow hips, their eyes focused
far away, lips unreadable drawstring lines
the woman’s hands move absently, searching

without seeing, she pats her apron, palms
muslin cheeks, reaches to pull clothespins
from the mouths of girl and boy

she bends to a basket of laundry, raises
work shirts and bed sheets to a clothesline
drawn tight as the tremor of telephone wire

where the birds land, grateful for crust
the cradle pockets of aprons, and this figure
in the field taming grass waves

About the Author

Lucinda Trew is the author of What Falls to Ground (Charlotte Lit Press, 2025), a meditation on the marvel of gravity and moments of grace. Her work has been honored with three Pushcart Prize nominations, a Best of the Net nomination, and Boulevard’s 2023 Poetry Contest Award for Emerging Poets.

about the artist

Najib Joe Hakim is a working documentary photographer, artist and photography instructor. Hakim also serves as the President of the Board for the Network of Photographers for Palestine and is a founding member of Class Conscious Photographers. He is the recipient of the Rebuilding Alliance Storytellers Award for a trilogy of projects on Palestine, a Political Art Fellow at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and a past nominee for the US Artist Fellowship. His books are available at: < https://bit.ly/MagCloudBookCollection >. www.JaffaOrangePhoto.com

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