Two Poems

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Mizna Online

November 6, 2025

by Eman Abdelhadi

We publish these poems a month following activist, scholar, poet, and beloved Mizna friend and contributor Eman Abdelhadi’s unconscionable arrest for protesting an ICE detention facility in Chicago. Eman’s principled advocacy and unwavering politics demonstrate the beauty and necessity of transgression—both on the page and in the streets.

This Mizna Online exclusive feature is published as part of Mizna 26.1: Kindred, link to purchase HERE.

—Nour Eldin H., assistant editor

Don’t our children make pretty figures?
Would you like them in short clips?

—Eman Abdelhadi

Daily Advocacy

How should I lay out our dead
that they may please you?
Would you like them as tallies?
As lines on a graph?
As bars on a chart?
Don’t our children make pretty figures?
Would you like them in short clips?
One minute? Two minutes? Three?
Would you like them as photos?
Lines and lines of crisp white cotton?
Or before they are scrubbed clean
Bones bereft of flesh?
Should we present them to you
In rubble or in blood?

Between Two Screens

Should I put up my hair or leave it down?
They’re killing our children in Gaza.
What should I make for dinner?
They’re killing our children in Gaza.
We’re out of dishwasher pods, babe!
They’re killing our children in Gaza.
Do you want to co-work sometime?
They’re killing our children in Gaza.
I made cookies, I’ll bring you some.
They’re killing our children in Gaza.
The post office was closed.
They’re killing our children in Gaza.
I have to teach in an hour.
They’re killing our children in Gaza.
I can’t fall asleep.
They’re killing our children in Gaza.

Eman Abdelhadi is an organizer, writer and scholar. She is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, where she researches gender, migration, and religion. She is coauthor of the revolutionary speculative fiction novel Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 (Common Notions Press, 2022).