Instead of baptism by water, a Muslim baby is welcomed
into the world with a head shaved clean

I emerged from the womb with a head full of hair
in the joy of new parenthood, and the speed

hair sprouted from my scalp, there is an entire
photo gallery of my repeated blessings:

my father grinning under bulbous glasses
me bald and wailing in one hand, buzzers in the other

even before I was born my mother prayed I’d have good hair
I kept it long and unbrushed, let the dark

protein trail behind me like I was afraid of getting lost
in the scatter, I could thread an ocean

a rising of all the selves I leave behind
when the rumble of an new gender quaked

my auntie took me to the hairdresser, one loud snip
and there was no more ocean,

only rediscovery of scalp, at home
my father swallowed his disapproval, finding

his trimmer at the back of my neck
for the first time in eighteen years

I have now let most of the length return, finding
new ways to tend to and worship this wild water

I still keep an undercut along my right side
hold my duality and call it prophecy

with the clippers in my hand at the bathroom mirror
I build my own blessing over, and over again.

I am building myself a country I fully belong to,
her national anthem the sound of the tea boiling over,
her flag woven out of MetroCards and my mustache hairs,
her language missing the edges and hardness
of the colonizer’s consonants

here my gender is a thread turned loose
and my only job is to be pulled and unraveled,
I pile on the floor
and find joy in the tangle

in this nation, diaspora is divine
the third culture cracked open like a coconut
the East the husk, the West the juice

in this nation, everyone makes it home safely
in this nation, everyone makes it home
in this nation, everyone makes it