Poetry from Zeynep Inanoglu

Photo: Abed Ismail

Hagar’s Pilgrimage

Flush with seed,
my coveted belly rose
and emptied like a spring
I mothered with water, with
the sweetest relief watched our son
a marvelous creature
expand beyond
my self

Ibrahim, in your pupils
I was an animal
stunned by the image
of its own face
I was cattle, my milk
feral with blood
my pain, a private
wilderness

where you sent my son
and me to die: hollow
desert in which
no seed can rest
and one must heed
the sun’s demands,
to wilt, sullen place
where my breasts
became withered hills
and I ran
on bleeding feet, on
skin as bleached
as bone

But God
has provided, has
looked upon my face,
held my meek voice
to his ear, as we named
our first son: Ishmael.
.

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Zeynep Inanoglu is a Turkish-American poet, nurse, and visual artist. Her poetry focuses on bodily experience, spirituality, lineage, and medicine. Her work has been published in Folio, Skidmore College’s student-run literary magazine. In 2021, she was awarded the Distinguished Writing Award in Poetry by the Skidmore English department. Zeynep graduated from Skidmore College with a B.A. in English literature in 2021. She is a current student at Yale School of Nursing.