Poetry

I I learn how to breathe underwater— spring vacation, 1978. Aunt Nayyer takes me to the Caspian  where the stray herrings die by the sable shore.  She raises her arms in prayer for all the bounty  we haul home and feast for dinner.  Each fish the size of my hand. All brine and grit. Carcasses…

slapped me today open hand swiftly across my face like he did would gunshot flame set the block the night sky alight i don’t know why i’m not the only one who matters the only one sitting on the bed head in hands shoulders trembling as water does before it falls from a leaf a…

When the air is this soft, when insects and  birds are the soundtrack, when your skin is  dried salt from the sea, and your clothes are  strung out on a line in a yard whose  path to the road is familiar and  empty and open to an ocean you hear but can’t see, whose wash…

If I knew how to enter this moment I would tell you about my father, who entered a mission in California, went straight to the guestbook, and asked my mother for a pen. He wrote the words shame on and the rest can be filled in with many words. He said Native Americans were used by the…

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…

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…

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…

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….

What bird was that that just flew through my mind?