p[l/r]ay – a little girl’s salaah

In this game of
talking to God,
she is careful
to cover her toes
with the cloth
from her mother’s
jilbab.
Her hands pat
away at a tangled fringe
and away she goes;
Up
Down
Touch the ground.
Lips  pursed
in the swiss-swiss-swiss
of beautiful
sweet
pious
gibberish.

Published by

saaleha

I am a writer and photographer (look up my work on www.shootcake.com) based in Johannesburg, South Africa. I have an MA in Creative Writing from the university currently known as Rhodes. My writing accolades include winning the 2014 Writivism Short Story Prize and the 2020 Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize for my debut collection, Zikr.

2 thoughts on “p[l/r]ay – a little girl’s salaah”

  1. 🙂
    very nostalgic 🙂
    love the ‘swiss-swiss-swiss’
    we’ve all done that when we were kids 🙂

    it now reminds me of my 3yr old niece praying salaah next to my sister in her barbie undies and her mum’s very long burka 😉
    (she doesn’t ‘get it’ yet, she doesn’t need to, as yet)

    Reply

  2. Very cute 🙂 It’s even more cute when the little one is right in front of you and decides to put her ‘baby’ to sleep while you’re in the middle of salaah 🙂

    Reply

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