My flowers are reflected
In your mind
As you are reflected in your glass.
When you look at them,
There is nothing in your mind
Except the reflections
Of my flowers.
But when I look at them
I see only the reflections
In your mind,
And not my flowers.
It is my desire
To bring roses,
And place them before you
In a white dish.

mr. parker, here i
meant to speak
of dust, dust
and how
even
its perniciousness
echoes
godforce thru light,

perhaps what i
am trying to say:
i’ve grown tired
of singing
the blues,
mr. parker.
all these things i be,
bubbling up; heart-thawed
for a new round of reckonings,,

still, i
am not
who i
am when i
was where i
was,,,

i
am
only
these jangling
night lights
fixed
to a spirit
pleading
for the next
break of dawn
to lay me out
sunny-side,
to thread
my sternum
through to you;
bring
you a
love you
can
hold,,,, 

i’ll build
a glass house
of these
wonders, everything clear-
cut and brilliant and
still,
sometimes,
that late-june
sun unsexes
me
whole,,,,,

The pearls of his spine
came unstrung
at a bullet’s bite.
 
His regal neck
(that  Darling-
don’t-you-love-me?-curl)
 
just hung.
Two red dahlias
bloomed through white down,
 
dropped petals
on his chest, 
dyed the water maroon. 
 
                     -

I bring the brass swan
from junk shop
to bedside,
 
pack the wound
in its back
with pink plastic flowers,
 
say Yes, yes, I do,
each night before sleep.
In dreams I go
 
circling the lagoon
with webbed feet,
calling, calling for you.

Comes brazen, even in daylight, ordained by the gods
Holds infinite motes in suspension, appears citrine
Enters sometimes obliquely, outwits the amulet, the chant
Leaves a hot-to-touch scar, initiates a tenderness of decades
Says you are gone
Causes drought, chronic longing, the unwitting
             all-night vigil, tears on linoleum, the shut door
Manifests as pestilent thorns if overindulged or ignored
Transforms if acknowledged, gazed
           lightly upon, if made recipient of secret letters
Granulates in a climate of continuous acceptance
Reduces to lambent dust, self-luminous
Bestows a capacity for seeing, breaches
              the retina, darkens the limbal ring of the eye
Does not ever really leave, but suffuses the system
Hums in spring in the skull on the lap of the Magdalene
Links to the global network through which compassion passes
           as juice passes through my hands now folded on the tablecloth
           and into the hard green beginnings of our orchard’s plums
Repeats you are gone
Looks, under a microscope, like sugar many times refined
Heats the bulbs, the clenched peonies, the bunched-up
clumps of leaves to a point of capitulation
Opens glossy folios, ultraviolet, in the mind.

^{translated from the Arabic by Ammiel Alcalay, Khaled al-Hilli, and Emna Zghal}

It’s not on you, that when you left you realized house had no
arms to embrace, that you didn’t see its eyes to guide them to
where you hid the bundle of sorrow, and that it didn’t have a
shoulder upon which to whisper love, ask to attend to the rest
of the clothes, the china cabinet, and what’s left of the cough
medicine, don’t be uneasy if memories cling to your legs like
an orphaned girl, and if they don’t want to stay, take them
with you, like the bag of flour and the canister of gas and
the eye drops, you’ll find a place for them wherever you are.
Don’t tell them with your worn-out wisdom, stay to keep
the house company, don’t let it go through this alone.
It’s not on you — house, your child that you coddled,
is now a young man who will endure loneliness and bullets.
The kid you raised is a man who will endure war, and taste
the jabs of tanks for the first time, it’s not on you, you’ll see
it fatigued when you come back to it, yes, wounded maybe,
but still sure in its standing, soothing its shattered spirit,
drawing the shredded windows to its chest, and you,
like a Father, puzzled as to how to dress house’s wounds.

March 1, 2024

 

خارِج مِن البيتِ

،لا عليكَ، إنْ لمْ تَجِد للبيتِ حينَ خَرجتَ أذرُعاً للعِناقِ
،إنْ لمْ ترَ عَينيهِ كَي تَدِلَّهُما أينَ خَبّأتَ صُرَّة الأَسى
،وإنْ لمْ يَكُن لَهُ كَتِفٌ لِتهمسَ عندهُ بالمحبةِ
وتوصيه على بقيةِ الثيابِ، على خزانةِ الصحونِ، وما تيسَّرَ مِنْ
،دَواءِ السعالِ
لا تَكن ضَجِراً إنْ تعلّقتْ بساقَيك الذِكْرَيات مِثل طفلةٍ يتيمةٍ، ولمْ تَشَأ
البَقاء، خُذْها معك، مثل كيس الطحين وجرّة الغاز وقَطرة العَينِ، ستجِد
.لها مكاناً حيثُ تكون
لا تقلْ لها بحكمتِكَ الباليةِ: إبقِ، لتُؤنِسي البَيتَ ولا تدعِيه وحدَهُ
،يعبرُ التجربةَ
لا عليكَ، فالبيتُ طِفلُكَ الذي دلَّلْتَهُ، صارَ شاباً سيَحْتَمِلُ الوحدةَ
والرصاص، طفلُكَ الذي ربّيْتَه صارَ شاباً سيَحْتَمِلُ الحربَ ويتذوَّقُ للمرةِ
،الأولى لكماتِ الدبابات
،لا عليكَ، ستراهُ مُتعَباً حينَ تعودُ إليهِ، نعم، جريحاً، ربما
لكنّهُ واثقاً من وقوفِه، يهدْهدُ روحَهُ المفتَّتَة، يَلُمُّ على صدرِهِ
،نوافذَهُ الممزقة
.وأنتَ كأبٍ يحارُ كيفَ يضمِّد جراحَ البيتِ
،١  مارس/ آذار
٢٠٢٤

I got curious about the etymology of girl.
It did not always mean female—
originally girl meant small, ignorant,
lacking heft, intellect. Some philologists
say that girl once connoted

worthlessness, any living creature
considered weak, whether human or animal.
Others wager the word’s source more obscure.
No one knows the first time
a human girl decided to starve herself,

go further toward the vanishing
people want from her.
The penance of fasting, taken up
by those longing to be saints and the word girl
emerge at about the same time and place: Medieval

Europe. Starving yourself is old
hat, it goes back, transcendent.
Along the lines of girl also, call-girl, match-girl, girlie.
Catch-words for the discardable.
Finally, at age 15,

after a year of boundless fasting, I stopped
starving myself. But it took decades
after that to lose the habit
of silence, hunger’s match.

    Let all the flowers wake to life;
  Let all the songsters sing;
Let everything that lives on earth
  Become a joyous thing.

    Wake up, thou pansy, purple-eyed,
  And greet the dewy spring;
Swell out, ye buds, and o’er the earth
  Thy sweetest fragrance fling.

    Why dost thou sleep, sweet violet?
  The earth has need of thee;
Wake up and catch the melody
  That sounds from sea to sea.

    Ye stars, that dwell in noonday skies,
  Shine on, though all unseen;
The great White Throne lies just beyond,
  The stars are all between.

    Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,
  And ring the glory in;
Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—
  Ring out the stains of sin.

    O banners wide, that sweep the sky,
  Unfurl ye to the sun;
And gently wave about the graves
  Of those whose lives are done.

    Let peace be in the hearts that mourn—
  Let “Rest” be in the grave;
The Hand that swept these lives away
  Hath power alone to save.

    Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,
  And ring the glory in;
Ring out the sorrow, born of earth—
  Ring out the stains of sin.