Triptych in the Shapes of My Name
by Lili Alimohammadi
The
distance is not enough
to keep us from seeing home in
everyone
(even when
it’s ruins or someone else is in its
place) and even when
I only knew myself as white blooms my
eyes
were almond tell-tale:
two customers with crows feet and the deep.
nail beds
of my grandparents I’ve never
met ask is
it your mother or
your father
?
Mom charring the tadig.
The dog
drags piss
on the
rugs.
My face
a funny mannerism or
misspoken word it wears
so weirdly at some point I had to call it
something people were
waiting
so I called it nothing
and two things both. It made me laugh
and so when
I sobbed on the side
of the rows of shotgun
homes and I wanted
to go home
I saw
there was nowhere not
forward not back so
I said both
names and I
laughed…
If
there’s a beginning it’s this sonic
image of my
stranger face, fat
sculpted like the Gulf’s clay into
someone neither of me.
If there’s a beginning it was our end:
I was a baby born too wet and red
for them to not
want to protect and I
called that having language for a while.
I could name
everything that I needed
except myself.
But it’s
decently
easy to get
by without if
you
know the words
for
white
noise
machine.