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For Tradition H SUSAN ATEFAT-PECKHAM I struggled with my grandmother’s rosebush, pinching and bending branches, picking each red and yellow petal from tender stems. I pushed them into a glass of water set on the cement ledge and waited patiently in her lap, lacing my inked fingers around her neck, stroking the flushed skin, watching the callouses on a soldier’s hands through a space in the gate and wondered if his twitching fingers could reach the glass. I now see the deep lines in her forehead, and a whispered prayer plays on her wrinkled lips. She holds the Qu’ran to my swelling mouth waiting for me, a woman now, to kiss the ruffled pages and pass under its broken spine. I hear her, full with care, spill the water at the gate and drop warm petals, For tradition, she says, for my quick return, as if the trail smeared in the mortar behind the car made a difference, as if a kiss on the holy book would keep us safe. FOR TRADITION 95 ...

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