Poetry

Untitled

And if the family is in a car driving And if the car is a 1965 Ford Falcon With a Hi-Po 289, velocity stacks Sticking out of the hood, solid Front axle for drag racing, and if The car is running on retreads And if the car is on an incline On the way back…

How She Was Raised

Raised by grief, raised by hunger,           the bowls of cornflakes she ate alone at night. Raised by the 4:00 a.m. ring calling her to open up, roughnecks           waiting at the café door. Raised away from language, English she was not allowed to speak.           Raised into anger—men she was not allowed to see and the one…

A Lament for My Elders

I would have hefted heaven and earth aloft           to keep your hearts thumping in your thorny chests, your world-weary lungs filling like accordions,           your eyes shining with visions pierced by glee. But you performed your leave-taking dutifully—           such are nature’s commandments, its ordained cycles— so, though your vanishing slowed my life with sorrow,           I no…

Mother’s Obfuscation

How would I know, don’t you see I haven’t washed my hands? How could I even talk about anything? I don’t remember anything from Syria or my childhood or anything. Why would you ask such a stupid question? Your father should have been a monk. They come to this country with money. Money, money money….

Shatter-Proofed

On the special ed school tour, he asks what is that tiny room with the tiny window, and the assistant admissions director tells us it is the seclusion room. We look at the closet-size featureless space with the metal- reinforced door and large thick steel bar on the outside, and our faces are not as…

Tannin, Sky, Night

How to describe the color of a pond gone fugue in autumn wind surface tinctured blue, sky-stained and deeper water tea-stained from steeping in peat that netted entanglement that took a thousand years to form. How far the land can go in telling a story, water dark as obsidian night toward which I progress every…