falling in love in arabic
the cab driver tells me maybe you’ll stay in detroit and never leave
the train conductor talks to me like he’s letting me know how to get home
my sibling says everyone tells her she’d love dearborn
everyone here assumes I’m from here and that I belong
everyone is inviting me over for tea, lunch, art, a reading, a khutbah
everyone is coming through, coming over, and bringing their cousin
noor hosts a bonfire in the backyard for all the scheming writers
fargo finds new places to play pool, a quiet hustler
i'm not ready for fady to become my doctor but
homes and spare rooms and apartments spring up to host me
the cicadas will be coming soon, in a summer superemergence
one cat wants all my attention and touch and the other follows me, longing but aloof
my heart feels like i'm breaking, i feel more alive than ever,
in an unending ramadan since al-shifa, i can barely eat or sleep
i swoon, i die, i am dearborn, i live, i detroit again
someone has flipped on the power grid in a town that’s been dead for fourteen years
not all the lines are insulated and some are throwing off sparks
careful careful, don’t catch fire. please catch fire.
burn me dearborn, burn me detroit, break me and make me over again
more myself this time, return me to my own life, truthful this time
hidden no more, no more making do, let me be boulder and seedling both
bring me back again and again, sprouting furious from the rubble
every day i am cooked like a chickpea in the eternal beloved’s own recipe
my hydrologist friend asks what would this feeling be like, knocked down and spilled out?
i’m asked how long i’ll be here and it’s open-ended, negotiable, a gift
maybe i’m here as a birthday present to the world
maybe i’m here as a scandal to hide from every forensic agency
i’d never done it before: heard my name in my name’s own language, spoken outside
never been able to say suhba is what i’m seeking, not sadaqa, not hubb,
and have myself be understood without explanation, translation
and the way i’m talked to, by firelight, called forth and conjured, love to love
am i june’s sweet menace am i a troublemaker in may’s catastrophe
am i an angel a questioner a teacher a student, always summoned
called destiny as a limit and a possibility, ah yes, tender danger.
In Sitti's Garden
In my sitti’s garden bloom all the seeds she smuggled
through customs in her simple soft undergarments
using the universal translation of a small card
written by my uncle in Arabic, English, and French,
a pass to carry her across three continents, an ocean,
and at least half a dozen borders. In my sitti’s garden,
seeds are sown by the aspects of the moon
refracted through the gauze of a black crepe scarf
she unravels from her legendary head
that will never change or pass from this world,
for in the body of every grandchild and great grandchild
she is undying, immortal, a monument against monuments
to meals foraged from every field she put her feet to:
dandelion salad, clove drink for digestion & tooth pain.
My sitti’s garden is the world, and everywhere is her harvest,
every soil grateful and ready for her flowers, all the weeds
offer their neglected medicine for the ones who know
their worth, their names, the old recipes. In my sitti’s garden,
we do not need a calendar or a clock: it is always time
to do what needs doing—is that not obvious?
Shoof, hatayt a shway milleh, kaman wa kaman.
In my sitti’s kitchen, which is any kitchen she’s in,
we blend the spices we will cook with in every meal
for the next three months. She teaches how to make tea:
not too ahmar, not too halloo, bas bekeffi.
If all I make of my body in this life is a garden
and a kitchen inside myself, to carry through this world—
khallas, bekeffi, it would be enough: the right marameeya,
the right baboonaj, shay wa na'na, qawah ma cardamom,
so obvious a combination no one ever taught me the words
for them to be separate. There is no coffee without hayl,
there is no me without her. I am a dumpling
that wants to be full of her, to be the makdous she salts, stuffs,
and pickles. Give me a wrinkle for every recipe page,
let me be one of the books on the shelf she authored.