^{Meaning: stranger, one without a home and thus, deserving of pity. Also: westerner.}

on visits back your english sticks to everything.
your own auntie calls you ghareeb. stranger

in your family’s house, you: runaway dog turned wild.
like your little cousin who pops gum & wears bras now: a stranger.

black grass swaying in the field, glint of gold in her nose.
they say it so often, it must be your name now, stranger.

when’d the west set in your bones? you survive
each winter like you were made for snow, a stranger

to each ancestor who lights your past. your parents,
dead, never taught you their language—stranger

to everything that tries to bring you home. a silver sun
& blood-soaked leaves, everything a little strange

& a little the same—like the hump of a deer on the busy
road, headless, chest propped up as the cars fly by. strange

no one bats an eye. you should pray but you’re a bad muslim
everyone says. the Qur’an you memorized turns stranger

in your mouth, sand that quakes your throat. gag & ache
even your body wants nothing to do with you, stranger.

how many poems must you write to convince yourself
you have a family? everyone leaves & you end up the stranger.

Yallah habibti, move your tongue like the sea

easy. My big sister teaches me to ululate, rolls

her tongue in waves. Dips thin fingers inside

my mouth to pull out mine, stretches it long

and pinches the tip. Watch, we move tongues

like this. I see the walls of our father’s house

collapse and we swim free leleleleleleleleleee

On the ferry to Tangier I shriek across the sea.

Practice how to sound like a real woman. Old

aunties grab my buttocks, smush their breasts

against my back and sing leleleleleleleleleleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Don’t cover your mouth habibti! Only women

on the upper deck, only sea. We move tongues

like this to tell the waves stay back, tell men

stay back, tell the dead stay gone, tell runaway

wives stay gone. They turn me into wisteria

woman, limbs wrapped around poles and thighs

as they guide me. Throw back your head, epiglottis

to the breeze. Salt air burns my hot membranes,

scratches at the tight knots of my chords.

All my life I was told

women must swallow sand 

unless we are sounding

a warning.