March 15th, 2019 – Across two mosques, fifty Muslims were murdered as they gathered for the weekly Jummah prayer.

Outside lay shoes
lined on concrete, dust gathering
as they wait to be worn
by those who left them behind.

Inside, carpets discolored by time
threads frayed by the pitter patter of
children’s feet and
the heels of tired men.

Three and fourteen and seventy-one.
Fifty foreheads –
some wrinkled, some kissed,
pressed against stone and cloth, as

silence breaks and they descend
to their knees to return
to the clots of congealed blood
from where they came.

They left us clean.
Their hands, their feet and mouths
and foreheads and the backs of their ears,
washed.

On the concrete lie scattered shoes
orphaned
waiting to be worn by lost feet and
healed

by prayer and song
behind these hollowed walls.

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Azam Mahmood is a poet and writer who writes about queerness, immigration, and Muslim identity.

Photo: Jeremy Yap