A goat in a cup of tequila

Like a mother of a soldier who is scared of military mail that can disturb her on a quiet night
My heart keeps shaking from the moment you were gone
I lost my secret satisfaction 
With whom will I talk now about my neighbors’ missing cat? 
Who will believe me but you? 
When I say a hungry squirrel’s eyes, only look like a hungry squirrel's eyes?
Who cares about the travail of words that embodied the trembling of the fingers that stuck this goat into the bottom of this cup?
With whom she will share her pent-up screams 
While she -without ears -stands in a cold glass void?
And before all of that, 
Who can accept a drink of tequila in a cup with a goat standing inside it other than you?


Faleeha Hassan is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, and playwright born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967, who now lives in the United States. Faleeha was the first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq.
She received her master's degree in Arabic literature, and has now published 26 books, her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosnian, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek, Serbia, Albanian, Pakistani, Romanian, Malayalam, Chinese, ODIA, Nepali and Macedonian language. She is a Pulitzer Prize Nominee for 2018, and a Pushcart Prize Nominee for 2019.
She's a member of the International Writers and Artists Association.
Winner of the Women of Excellence Inspiration award from SJ magazine 2020, and the Winner of the Grand Jury Award (the Sahitto International Award for Literature 2021). She served on the Women of Excellence selection committees for 2023, was a winner of a Women In The Arts award in 2023 and a Member of Who's Who in America 2023. She's on the Sahitto Award's judging panel for 2023 and a cultural ambassador between Iraq and the US.