My mother fashioned my hair
into rows of wheat.
I am in a plaid button down
and cow girl boots–
this is the year
I will declare
my All-American heritage:
no more cornrow pleats
or Southern meals.
Today I am not my accent
or choice of meal.
I am a black stain
on a white handkerchief:
America stitched across
the borders,
colors confined,
between the right lines.
Dalia Ahmed is a junior at Miami Arts Charter School attending the Creative Writing Program. She has won keys and medals in Scholastic’s Alliance for Young Artists and Writers and was chosen as a semifinalist for the National Student Poets Program as well as a Foyle Young Poets commendee. Her most recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dog Eat Crow, Postscript Literary Journal, the Best Young Writers 2013 publication, the Of Love and Dedication anthology, and elsewhere. Dalia also received first place in poetry in the Sierra Nevada College High School Writing Contest. Dalia lives in Miami, FL with a large Afro-Arab family, collections of colorful headscarves, and many bowls of hummus and pita bread.
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