I have turned our childhood into a few dozen verses;

there are places for dramatic pause,

and where memory failed,

I embellished a bit.

You’ve grown impatient with me

and my so-called poetic license;

I don’t remember that

has become your weary mantra.

D,

I am learning to excavate the good times too.

Can’t you see where I’ve colored some words?

Inserted those tender moments?

A famous writer once said that eventually

I will tire of myself and will be compelled

to tell the I-less stories….I anxiously await that moment.

But for now, I want to tell them about our war with mama’s illness

and how at school we were maimed for being foreign.

Remember D?

When they chased us up Tioga Street

and accused us of having voodoo and

scanned our dark bodies for tribal scars

and discovered the cayenne pepper we had hidden;

to throw in their faces,

to sting them,

to make them fear us,

to be left alone,

to be African.

D,

I have managed to poem all my pain;

tell me,

what do you do with yours?

Long hast thou suffered, sister of my heart, 
              Still thou art 
              Fair to see ; 
Thy pains thou entertainest with thy song, 
              But how long 
              Will this be? 

The seasons all have come and gone, my dear, 
              But thy cheer 
              Still abides. 
I ask which of thy moan or song is best 
              And thou sayst : 
              “God decides.” 

I feel the ebbing of the undertone 
              Of thy moan 
              In thy song ; 
How long will tears and irony compete 
              For thee, Sweet, 
              O, how long? 

When wilt thou, Baby dear, with nimble feet, 
              Run to greet 
              Me at the door? 
When wilt thou, Saada, walk again with me 
              Near the sea, 
              As before? 

O sister, how I wish to see thee run, 
              In the sun, 
              On the sands ! 
The singing breakers and the smiling beach 
              To thee reach 
              Out their hands. 

The light of day is longing for thy face 
              And the grace 
              Of thy form ; 
O how I wish to see thee, Noor-ul-Ain 
              Caught again 
              In the storm !