Tablet X

1
Her voice floated out
from the deepest blue
a phone could transmit:
She said: I am M . . . Remember me?
I said: I had a childhood friend named M.
She said: That’s me, your childhood friend.
Where are you?
I said: Lost, and you? Where are you?
She said: Lost.
And our laughter
made the absence disappear.

2
We resumed our talk
that began fifty years ago
on the branches of the jujube tree
in Baghdad,
not paying attention to how the days
had spilled from our pockets.

3
The jujube tree grew old;
but we remained children,
flowering without secrets.

4
Once, we made a horse
out of a tree branch. We rode
the horse to faraway countries
that we had seen in picture books
so we could meet other children.
We visited their dreams
and they visited ours.
Stories grew into more stories.
Then one day we cried
because our horse branch had died.

5
A wise neighbor taught us
to draw a circle around fear
to make it disappear.
My friend made two loop earrings:
one for her fear, and one for mine.

6
When the war started,
our fear grew so large
it broke our circle,
leaving us exposed
to the explosions.
We tried to encircle
its blasts with our singing.

7
When the tree heard our song,
the branches swayed in ecstasy
and chorused to us with fruit.
When the war saw us eating
the tree’s music, it asked
to join in the singing.
We understood the war’s hunger
and its boredom. But the war
swallowed our country whole.
We watched in shock as the war
got sicker and sicker and threw us up.

8
Away from our town,
we became the roads we had walked to school,
the always open doors,
the razqi flowers separated from their scent.

9
The emptied houses
exchanged looks
with the departed who kept
looking back.

10
We left our clothes fluttering
on the roofs of our homeland,
where our memories
must have dried by now.

11
A bullet
then a siren
then ruins
then a bird song
telling the truth.

12
Our country is a small circle
inside a bigger circle.
Whenever we meet old friends,
the world becomes a small circle.

13
When we sit
at the foot of the tree
weary of searching
for home, the tree speaks:
Find your seed to reach home.

14
When my friend bowed
to let the war pass over her head,
she discovered a seed—
the globe she would roam.

15
When I found the seed,
I discovered that my home
is not a place.

16
I need a seashell
to hear the chatter of the girls
as we walked home from school,
the clamor and claps as we jumped
on the hopscotch squares,
traces of chalks still on our hands.

17
Our footsteps follow the sun
like sunflowers, happy at sunset
for the nurturing rest of darkness,
as we bend to different stars.

18
My friend asked: When are we meeting?
I replied: As soon as possible.
She agreed: You mean now, right?
I said: Yes!
And we laughed together.

19
The cold day
made us silent, as we sat
on a bench overlooking the Detroit River.
Then, suddenly, a thermos
with cardamom tea and two pieces of cake
appeared from her bag,
like a rabbit from a magician’s hat.

20
My friend asked: Remember
when you said you could fly,
and I believed you?
I smiled: I can still fly.

21
When I asked my friend
where we could find the stars
that we picked like jujube fruit
up on the roof those summer nights,
she pointed to the glimmer in our eyes.

22
Where is the doll
that we picked from the toy box
as our sister, and how did we orphan her
among the ruins?

23
I asked if every river
is the Tigris for her,
ever sadder as its waters
flow away without returning.

24
Every drop of water
is a different memory
of a river crossed by those
we know and don’t know.
Some who have died
we hide behind our eyes.
Some who are living
we hide to keep alive.
Some who are friends
bring over the Tigris
in a cup of tea.