Sarah Fathima Mohammed is the author of Take Me Home (Ethel Press, 2021). The 2021-22 National Student Poet of the West and 2022-23 Vice Youth Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County, Mohammed has performed her work at PBS's Poetry in America, Carnegie Hall, and the San Francisco Opera House. Her poetry has been recognized widely, receiving accolades by the White House, NPR, Poetry Society of the United Kingdom, and the Washington Post. Readers can find Mohammed's work in Diode, The Rumpus, Cream City Review, Rattle, and wildness among other publications. She currently resides in California's Bay Area.

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YOUTH PORTFOLIO

Torn Lungs

By SARAH FATHIMA MOHAMMED

Our bodies, my mother answers, //
when I ask her what the world reined. The world / tightening / its fist.