MAKE ME A WORLD is an imprint dedicated to exploring the vast possibilities of contemporary childhood. We strive to imagine a universe in which no young person is invisible, in which no kid’s story is erased, in which no glass ceiling presses down on the dreams of a child. Then we publish books for that world, where kids ask hard questions and we struggle with them together, where dreams stretch from eons ago into the future and we do our best to provide road maps to where these young folks want to be. We make books where the children of today can see themselves and each other. When presented with fences, with borders, with limits, with all the kinds of chains that hobble imaginations and hearts, we proudly say—no.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2021 by Safia Elhillo

Cover art copyright © 2021 by Shaylin Wallace, based on a photograph by Yael Marantz All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Make Me a World, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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ISBN 9780593177051 (trade) — ISBN 9780593177068 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 

9780593177075

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: New Country

i: The Photograph

ii: Baba

iii: Mama

iv: Haitham

v: School

vi: America

vii: Yasmeen

viii: Nostalgia Monster

ix: My Name

Part 1: The Other Side

1: The Airport

2: Mama

3: Haitham

4: Pyramids

5: Haitham

6: Haitham

7: An Illness

8: Haitham

9: Khaltu Hala

10: Mama

11: Overheard

12: Mama

13: The Photographs

14: Mama

15: Overheard

16: Another Life

17: Baba

18: Haitham

19: Boys

20: The Mirror

21: Videos

22: English

23: English

24: Halloween

25: Mama

26: Yasmeen

27: Yasmeen

28: Haitham

29: Bathwater

30: Haitham

31: Advice

32: Calling Haitham

33: Jinn

34: Boys

35: Arabic Class

36: The Headscarf

37: The Office

38: Outside the Office

39: Why Here

40: Ghosts

41: The Silence

42: Alone

43: Mama

44: Yasmeen

45: Haitham

46: The Bus

Part 2: Old Country

47: Haitham

48: Hala

49: Touched

50: Running

51: Street Fair

52: Houses

53: Trespassing

54: The Water

55: Caught

56: The Diner

57: The Stranger

58: The Stranger

59: The Driveway

60: The Airport

61: Broken Arabic

62: No Daughter

63: The Elevator

64: The Photograph

65: Home

66: Home

67: Haitham

68: Ashraf

69: Visitors

70: Haitham

71: The Lesson

72: The Lovers

73: Yasmeen

74: The House

75: Morning

76: The Photographs

77: Yasmeen

78: Room

79: Hala

80: Hala

81: Baba

82: Baba

83: The Coward

84: Mama

85: The Game

86: Quiet

87: A Country

88: Yasmeen

89: Half Possible

90: A Single Possibility

91: Yasmeen

92: Yesterday & Tomorrow

93: Dusk

94: The Lesson

95: An Alternate Possibility

96: A Life

97: Yasmeen

98: Yasmeen

99: Spirits

100: Alone

101: Alone

102: Yasmeen

103: The Plan

104: The Cafe

105: Yasmeen

106: Leaving

107: Breaking

108: The Officers

109: Leaving

110: Gone

111: Left Behind

112: The Baby

Part 3: Home Is Not a Country

113: The Portal

114: The Portal

115: Home

116: The Photographs

117: The Kitchen

118: Haitham

119: Haitham

120: Haitham

121: Home Is Not a Country

122: The Singer

123: Nima

124: Yasmeen

125: Jazz

126: Yellow

Acknowledgments

About the Author

To my communities. To Awrad & Basma. You are my country.

Dear Reader,

The truth is, this is just one life of many you could have led.

At some point you made the choice to pick up this book, but you could have chosen something else to do. Before that there were other decisions—

you chose to walk down one street or another, to take the bus, to talk to that stranger. Even earlier there were decisions made before you were born, decisions that have profoundly affected who you are right now, what language you speak, where you live, even how you dream.

It seems to me that this knowledge—that you could have just as easily been any one of a hundred other people—is at the heart of empathy. It’s the realization that every person you meet, or see on the news, or hear about could have been you, if you had made slightly different choices, or if your grandparents had made different choices, going way back, into a great tree of different choices that looks like an entire world of people who aren’t you, but might have been.

Some people have the gift of understanding that they could have been other people; Nima is one of them. She understands that her own life is just one branch of a tree, and the seeds that became her could have just as easily become someone else. She rides her nostalgia and the strange here-and-there-ness that is every immigrant’s story to full visions of who she should have been if…And maybe we fantasize that we would be happier as that other person, or that we could run faster, or be more loved.

So many stories are about just this thing, the fantasy of what it would mean to be someone else. All the lions and wardrobes, all the kids with secret powers, even the cats in hats. But what they fail to realize is that just as much as there are the many people we could have been, these people live in the corners of imagination and, perhaps, they are wishing that they could be us.

Welcome, then, to Safia Elhillo’s Home Is Not a Country, a tree of identities, of who we are and who we could be, and the dangerous and beautiful place in between.

Christopher Myers

The Photograph

in a lifetime before mine my parents

not yet my parents only a slim girl

the color of cinnamon skirt swirled liquid

about her knees as she dances eyes cast

downward smiling shyly at a boy

who mirrors her movement to the song the little gap in his front teeth cigarette tucked

behind an ear & shirt unbuttoned down his chest sepia hand longing for her waist frozen

immortal in the photograph wondering

if they will ever touch

Baba

the photographs of my father are everywhere

alone in a suit framed in the living room

seated with his afro full taped to the mirror of my mother’s dresser in the one on the coffee table he stares awestruck at his bride a passport picture in mama’s wallet a single furrow in his brow i like the ones of him younger rounded & serious as a child dusty-kneed as a teenager crowded with other boys around a ball before the car crash that took him from knowing me before the father-sized ache before my mother all alone still crowding herself to one side of the bed saving his place soft browns of the sepia photos

making him impossibly far away

Mama

in this photo my mother is alone

as i will come to know her

it is her wedding day back home

a lifetime right before mine before

the new country & the widowing

& the worry lines stamped into her brow

her eyelashes painted dark beneath

a headdress of silver coins

strung across her forehead

& her hands floating up to fix

the arch of her headscarf

soil-colored blooms of henna

twisting from both elbows to

each finger

a different country a different

life the henna since faded

& the story hushed to memory

to old bits of song from oceans away

we are no longer back home

the headdress has been sold & my mother

is alone is at work is rushed

in her headscarf & blue jeans

& it hasn’t been her wedding day in years her name aisha means she who lives

but mostly she goes to work & comes home tired

& watches television & sometimes

in the television’s blue glow

her eyes make tears that do not fall

i keep this photograph in a tin box

that once held butter biscuits

long ago eaten by guests unimpressed

with our spare american living

Haitham

we’ve always known each other

our mothers friends from back home

bound into some ancient sisterhood

of grief his mother the only one

who can make my mother laugh

but when i really meet him when

we enter a siblinghood of our own

i am wearing the first new coat i have ever

owned & we are both entering the age that

makes our elbows feel larger than the rest

of our bodies

the wal-mart lights are cold & harsh

blunt squeak of his shoes against

the polished floors nothing left of

my mother’s date-palm trees his

mother’s riverbank only suburban

america no matter how far

we strain our eyes our mothers

share a shopping cart & speak shy

quiet english testing new words

like coupon & value-pack his polo shirt hangs loose about him

years before the shoulders

to come & all they’ll have to carry

later at the bus stop our mothers

fish for change at the bottoms

of their worn handbags he lifts

the hem of his shirt just a little

to show me a pack of stolen starburst

tucked into the waist of his jeans

are you going to tell? he whispers

& i shake my head thrumming

with excitement & fear a grin

stretches across his face good

he begins unwrapping the candy

because half of these are yours

School

i’ve never felt like i was good at anything

haitham for all his atrocious grades

is at least good at people while i am a solid

b minus in every class & barely scraping

a passing grade in any social interaction

muttering & burdened by the shadow of an accent that i cannot manage to make charming

at school haitham & i separate for the day

he’s repeating ninth grade & we now have

different lunch periods where i sit with

an assortment of others all citizens of

the social margins & though assembled

we do not talk we poke glumly at our wilted lunches i long ago begged mama to stop packing

leftovers for me to take to school the smell alone one morning filled the entire bus despite

my seat in the back where i waited

for everyone to pile out through the folding doors before slumping outside myself throwing away

the offending plastic container of okra & lamb & rice before anyone could know it was mine

now instead i make my own dejected sandwiches

damp in their paper towels two pieces of untoasted

white bread & between them a single slice of plasticky american cheese

America

i go to halfhearted arabic classes each sunday

in a rented room at the middle school & bleat alef baa taa thaa & agree with haitham who sits behind me that this is like so boring

we never ask why our mothers had come here

& could not let it go though i always beg

for the same crumpled photograph stories of

weddings that went on for weeks cafes crowded

with poets gardens lush & humming

with mosquitoes

we whisper to each other if it’s so great there then why don’t we ever go back

but i have always listened to the stories

& every day i long at school i still

do not speak i wear the same

fleece sweatshirt washed & rewashed

the girl who sits behind me in math

came over once to work

on a project told everyone after

that it smelled like rice & dirty plants wondered aloud if my mother

was bald under the headscarf

in my silence i dress myself

in yellow & imagine

a garden thick with date palms

a girl mouth open & fluent

who knows where she is from

Yasmeen

my mother meant to name me for her favorite flower its sweetness garlands made for pretty girls

for parties to be worn thick in heavy hair

instead i got this name & i don’t even know why maybe named for some unknown dead relative

some dreary ghost so of course no one wants me at their party their sleepover their after-school trip to the mall of course i fade to the back of the classroom the photos

& in the hallways no one looks my way some days i walk to school because the bus driver does not see me at the stop

& when i spot my homeroom teacher in the supermarket she glances & squints like she isn’t quite sure who i am i imagine her yasmeen this other girl bright & alive mouth full & dripping with language easy in her charm

& in essence she looks like me but of course better nails unbitten & painted turquoise her hair unknotted & long ears glittering with stud earrings not like mine thick with keloid from an infected piercing i imagine her back home fathered beloved

knowing all the songs & all their corresponding dances laughing big & showing all her teeth

invited to all the parties

called to from across the street by classmates by teachers jewel of the neighborhood & somehow

a little taller than me

like there are extra bones in her spine

like everyone knows her name & i ache

to have been born her instead

Nostalgia Monster

haitham calls me a nostalgia monster & likes to laugh at the dream-brain that takes over mine when i hear the old songs & run my fingers

over the old photographs i know the words

to the old films & imagine myself gliding in to join the dance glamorous in black & white photographed in sepia frozen in a perfect time

i wish our arabic teacher would tell us more

about what it was like back then before everyone left when they were young & dreaming

& hearing the songs crackling out of a radio but i cannot imagine him young or dancing

cannot imagine him any way except the way we know him now scowling over conjugations & how

we mispronounce the language how it wilts

on our american tongues

one of my favorites is a sayed khalifa song

where he sings to a girl he calls a pearl necklace

& says

where are the beautiful ones where did they go

& i think he means us all the ones who left

all the gone

My Name

nima well really it’s

ni’ma

mispronounced at school to sound like

the middle of the word animal or stretched into a whining neema no letter in english for the snarling sound that centers my name

its little growl

nima meaning grace it would be funny

if it weren’t cruel i stumble over my own overlarge feet & knock over the clay incense holder its coal burning a perfect circle into the wooden table i brush an uncoordinated elbow past the counter & the tray holding tea for guests a full set of dishes teapot & milk jug & sugar bowl

& saucers & matching cups painted

with tiny flowers goes crashing to the tiled floor i trip on the carpet’s hem & fall chipping a tiny corner of my bottom front tooth & in calling my name in exasperation my mother calls for the grace i don’t have

The Airport

once when i was small we packed a shared suitcase of bright cotton floral prints & something yellow

& silken i’d never seen my mother wear

& for the trip across the country she wore perfume

& her best red beaded scarf & we clattered into the terminal my mother collecting all the light a wedding on another coast its promises

of sunlight & gold & her scattered schoolmates

& cousins & faraway friends all crowded into a rented hall making it with color

& incense & song our country

& it all shone in my mother’s face

we approached the counter to check in the family ahead of ours handed their boarding passes with a grin before the agent turned to us & his smile clicked shut said check-in is closed & no

there is nothing he can do

& no there is no manager to call & please can we leave this counter is now closed

my mother’s faltering voice the soft music in her english her welling eyes her wilting face her beaded scarf

& all she said was please please i have a ticket

& i’d never seen her so small english fleeing her mouth

& leaving her faltering frozen reaching for words that would not come dabbing at her eyes

with the scarf its red so bright so festive

like it was mocking us

& all i could do was reach for the suitcase with one hand her limp arm with the other & wheel us to the exit

& in our slow retreat i heard the last snatches of that man’s joke his colleague’s barking laugh no way we’re letting

mohammed so-and-so near the plane

& that’s why we don’t go anywhere anymore

Mama

my mother is so often sad so often tired & wants mostly to sit quietly in front of the television where we watch turkish soap operas dubbed over in arabic

their sweeping landscapes & enormous romances until she falls asleep

chin pointed into her chest & glasses askew

on bright days she plays music pitches her voice high

& sings along to all the ones we love abdel halim

& wardi & fairouz sayed khalifa & oum kalthoum gisma’s open throaty voice & frantic percussion to which mama claps along tries sometimes to teach me the dances the body formed like a pigeon’s

the chest arced proudly upward head twisting helixes against the neck in a surprise to no one i cannot dance but love to watch her love that she tries anyway to teach me

& sometimes rarely by some magic the movement will click fluently into my body & she’ll ululate & clap while i twist my head in time to the song mama’s voice celebratory & trilling my nima my graceful girl

Haitham

is smaller than me three weeks younger & always a little disheveled always dressed in something that someone else wore first & laughs

the most enormous sound

haitham passes me a drawing during arabic class full-color cartoon on the back of a worksheet

of our horrible teacher spit flying from his

large mouth with a speech bubble that reads

WE ARE NOT AMERRICANS! YOU SPEAK

ZE ARRABIC! eyes bulging & his bald patch glistening in the light

i press my fist over my mouth to keep the laugh inside

& it builds until i think my eyeballs might burst until the sound threatens to come pouring from my ears from my nose until my face is wet

with tears

& haitham swipes the drawing crumples it

into his notebook right as the teacher turns

& thunders over spits a little while asking what on earth (the only way teachers are allowed to say the hell) what on earth is wrong with me i only manage to choke out allergies

& haitham from the row behind offers me

a tissue with a grin

Pyramids

once in arabic class excited that the new girl’s name luul reminded me of the song i love the pearl necklace i sang a little of it when she introduced herself

& watched her smile falter confused before she finally excused herself & by the end of the day everyone was giggling nima loves old people’s music pass it on so even here among my so-called people i do not fit here where the hierarchy puts those who have successfully americanized at the top i’ve marked myself by caring about the old world & now i hover somewhere at the bottom of the pyramid (while our arabic teacher drones about ancient times & the little-known fact

that our country has 255 pyramids remaining today) the bottom of the pyramid with those recently arrived dusty-shoed & heavy-tongued & though i’m born here though my love of the old songs & old photos doesn’t translate to my spelling my handwriting my arabic pronunciation or grammar or history

or memorization of the qur’an i recognize

in their widened eyes that feeling that shock of being here instead of there

Haitham

lives in my building which isn’t actually surprising since it seems everyone from our country immigrated to this same block of crowded apartments

it’s saturday morning & he’s ringing the doorbell frantic & falls inside when i answer

sweaty & rumpled & still in his house shoes coughing with a little joke in his eye

his grandmother opening his t-shirt drawer to put away the laundry found his secret pack of cigarettes which he doesn’t even really smoke which he tried to explain away while dodging the slippers aimed at his head who knew mama fatheya was so athletic

everything always so funny to him

she chased him out with cries of

DISKUSTING! DISKUSTING! & where else was he going to go

my mother hasn’t left yet for work & makes us tea boiled in milk poured into mismatched mugs

& hands us packs of captain majid cookies she gets from the bigala that haitham & i call ethnic wal-mart where we buy everything from bleeding legs of lamb to patterned pillow covers & cassettes

covered in a layer of dust

she never seems old enough to be anyone’s mother so pretty & unlined & smelling always of flowers she clears the cups & wipes the crumbs from the table

& our faces in quick movements pins her scarf around her face & leaves for work

haitham isn’t wearing shoes so we cannot go outside we instead spend the day playing our favorite game calling all our people’s typical names out the window into the courtyard mohammed! fatimah! ali! bedour!

to see how many strangers startle & look up when they are called

Haitham

haitham’s grandmother once asked us suspicious

what do you two do all day? & by the middle of the list had already turned her eyes back to the television as haitham continued to list our every microscopic act music videos snacks monopoly even though half the cards are missing five-dollar tuesdays at the movie theater after school

concan even though nima thinks i cheat

& we don’t really know the rules

& in truth i do not know what we really do

with our time together

because it’s always been like this

my every day is filled with haitham

his laughter pulling my own to join it

our nonsense jokes & riffs

& misremembered lyrics & laughing & more laughing i see him every day & somehow still have so much to tell him every time one of us rings the doorbell to the other’s apartment

& crosses the threshold already beginning whatever story already unfolding whatever thought & he’s never joined the other kids in making fun

of all my strangeness makes it feel instead

like a good thing

even when he calls me the nostalgia monster

he makes it sound like a compliment

full of affection & pure joy has never made me feel that there is anything wrong with me at all

An Illness

through the bathroom door i hear haitham singing loudly in the shower stretching each note with a flourish i perch next to mama fatheya on the couch

while she watches intent

as a woman on the television pulls a glistening chicken from the oven i am so bored & haitham

is taking his time the mantel above the television is crowded with photographs

haitham’s mother khaltu hala younger & first arrived her hair cut short & eyes haunted

haitham a bundle in her arms mama fatheya,

tell me about back home she glances up from her program irritated at first & then softening nostalgia is an illness, little one she says gently turning back to the television but continues

ours is a culture that worships yesterday over tomorrow but i think we are all lucky to have left yesterday behind we are here now

dissatisfied i press on wait, you actually like it here? & she faces me again a sadness hitched behind her eyes here i have lost nothing i could not afford to lose

just as haitham squawks the last notes to his song

& shuts off the shower i look at the lost country in mama fatheya’s face & recognize it

from my own mother’s face the face of every grown-up in our community a country i’ve never seen

outside a photograph

& i miss it too

Haitham

always laughing & pulling laughter from anyone he meets has interests that keep him here instead of dreaming of a lost world for a while he tried to get me

to play video games but i could not make myself care

& now i mostly sit on the plastic-covered couch

& watch him play while i daydream & when he’s done or tired of losing he’ll put on one of the old movies from the box under his grandmother’s bed though by now we’ve watched them all dozens of times we each

pick a favorite character & recite all the dialogue long since memorized & squawk off-key

to all the songs though secretly we are each belting them out in earnest

i think that secretly he loves

this old world almost as much as i do

Khaltu Hala

haitham’s mother her hair cut close around her ears though in the old pictures she wore it long puffed out around her shoulders curls halfway down her back i like her her gruffness & briskness & her short bark of a laugh the books shelved floor to ceiling

in the little apartment each one of them hers

traced for years by her fingers until the ink

began to gray the way she coaxes a smile

from my mother & clears the shadow from her face the way she growls out every letter of my name

in approval how i can’t imagine her ever afraid though when she is home we don’t watch the old films or sing the old songs or ask too many questions

my mother never talks about it except the one time after khaltu hala heard me humming the song

about the pearl necklace & eyes bulging

voice hoarse told me to leave & go home

knocking gently on our door hours later

a little pearl ring passed from her hand to mine her embrace bright with the smell of oranges & soap apology muffled by my sweatshirt’s thick fabric

that night my mother voice hushed told me

about the officers that cut khaltu hala’s hair the long scars

striped down her back the thousand things she will not talk about in hopes of erasing

that whole country & starting again here

brand-new & i almost wish she hadn’t told me

& for weeks after i did not want to listen

to the songs & every photograph looked sharper & ugly

& gave off the faintest smell of copper of blood

& now i mostly try to forget the story & return to loving the dream of home & the pearl never leaves my finger

Mama

though the story about khaltu hala hurts i do not want my mother to stop telling stories she who

so rarely tells anything at all i ask

about my grandmother loved flowers about my mother as a young girl i wanted to be

a dancer & when i ask about my name she frowns a little squinting as she chooses

the words i had a whole other name picked out, did you know? but when your father died i don’t know it felt like that name belonged to him

& i couldn’t bear to keep it without him so i picked something else & i feel that old pang of being second-best to that other girl my ghost-self

yasmeen

Overheard

my mother has guests over & i am hiding in my room humming to myself & looking through my tin box of artifacts the photographs again my mother as a painted bride my parents dancing i put the pictures away the cassettes & hear my mother calling me to greet her guests hello fine thank you i’m almost fifteen school’s fine

arabic’s fine alhamdulillah you too

& i duck back into hiding

& i hear khaltu amal with the tattooed eyebrows who is not actually my aunt & who always smells like ghee purring to my mother she could be such a pretty girl

& my mother mourning my unkemptness sometimes she won’t even brush her hair & i don’t know why she insists on wearing that sweatshirt all the time i have to pry it away to wash & khaltu amal again her cloying voice remember when we were girls?

the daughters we imagined we’d have? & i hate her

& her pink-gray face her still-brown neck she hasn’t bothered to bleach to match i hate her armful

of clattering bangles the way she touches my mother’s arm & pretends to be her friend the way she wrinkles her nose whenever she enters our apartment her own apartment large & expensive but filled with awful gaudy objects i giggle a little to myself at the memory of haitham

saying to her straight-faced

aunt amal, would you agree that money can’t buy taste? though my laugh dies as i hear her continue to mama remember the girl you wanted to name yasmeen? with yellow ribbons braided into her hair such a pretty name i never understood why you chose the other

& in the mirror i try to unknot the hair tangled at my neck

& of course there’s no point i give up & stare into my blurring reflection my body filled

with strange static & see only a smudge where my nose

& mouth should be only the eyes

large & blinking & intact & when i blink again it’s back the same unremarkable face

Mama

of course i know my mother is lonely

her days & nights spent mostly in the company of ghosts so much of who & what she’s loved she speaks of only in past tense though mostly

she keeps quiet i can’t help but imagine

that her life was enormous before we came here

loud & crowded & lively as any party

& then the final notes of the song & everyone is gone except me & i feel my own smallness as i try to fill her life’s empty spaces

though they gape around me like the one pair

of her high-heeled shoes i used to love

to play with when i was little so much of our life feels like sitting at a table set for dozens

who will never again arrive the two of us surrounded by empty chairs my mother is lonely

& i am her daughter her only i think that might be why i’m lonely too

The Photographs

the photographs are how i piece together

my imagining of my mother’s first life

when she was aisha life of the party

a girl in a yellow dress who was going

to be a dancer loved & laughing

& never lonely a whole life stretched

before her in the company of friends

& family & the man she chose

who chooses her & knows all

her favorite songs who watches her

with awe & never dies his life

braided tightly to the long bright ribbon of hers i don’t think she even knows i have them

these pictures i’ve had them for years

in the box i keep under my bed

& she’s never noticed because she never

asks for them because she hasn’t looked

at them in years

Mama

when i was little i always tried to make her smile it’s why i learned the songs why i learned all

their words why i learned to love them

the smiles were always rare though lately they feel even rarer & in their absence i keep myself company with the songs she taught me to love the dream

of a lost world where she was happiest

i miss him too my father though we never met

i miss the country that i’ve never seen the cousins

& aunts & grandparents i miss the help

they could have offered the secrets they knew

that i never learned of how to keep her smiling

Overheard

it’s saturday & i wake messily sweating & crumpled

& somehow sure that it’s closer to afternoon than morning through my closed door i can hear mama & khaltu hala their easy chatter a low hum the clinking of sugar being stirred into coffee something meaty & unfamiliar wafting its smells from the stove when i move to investigate i hear a shriek & rush to open the door see my mother doubled over in her seat her shoulders shaking

& for a sinking sickening moment i’m sure she’s crying i turn to look at khaltu hala to find out what happened but she’s smiling shaking her head as mama rises face shining with the tears i’d suspected

but she’s laughing

trying & failing to catch her breath before another peal escapes khaltu hala catches my eye motions to the kitchen i made turkey chili go make yourself a plate i point my chin quizzically at mama my eyes on khaltu hala for an answer

& she chuckles your mother is making fun of my fine

american cooking she keeps calling the chili white people curry & another peal rings out from mama alongside khaltu hala’s hoot of laughter

my own fit of giggles joining them

Another Life

in the dream i am back home & i am beautiful my country wrapped like an embrace around me my god not hated my language washed of all its hesitation my father alive alive he never gets into the car that night (my mother will not talk about it except to say

there was a car an accident) in the dream

he never gets into the car stays home instead reading poems aloud to my mother rubbing almond oil into her already-soft feet sitting for hours on the front steps of their house pointing to the moon’s perfect reflection in the river below in the dream he stays alive stays alive alive stays alive to meet me

Baba

i think if he’d lived my father would have been a famous singer crooning & preening in a shiny suit his hair dense & dark or maybe an artist

throwing clay onto a potter’s wheel & shaping creatures from its mass like some sort of smaller god or maybe an athlete muscle & vein cording in his still-strong legs a scientist serious in goggles & white a writer pulling stacks of books from his knotted brain a television star his face so familiar he’s almost everyone’s father but always mostly mine coming home in the evenings

to swing me up onto his back & run circles until i’m dizzy holding my hand in his callused grasp teaching me the songs he loved the songs he danced to

with my mother unwidowed & smiling with all her teeth twirled in the living room

dress billowing over her calves loved both of us belonging to someone tied together by the belonging by my father my father no longer gone

Haitham

tonight haitham does the funniest impression

of abdel halim hafez pitches his voice as deep

as it will go & croons all my favorite songs on tape so beautiful that they make me want to cry but when he does them i can’t choke back the laugh i join him in my own awful singing voice

& his grandmother is so superstitious but also maybe just irritated by our squawking voices drowning out her television program tells us not to be so rowdy at twilight because that is when the fine skin between our world & the next is thinnest

don’t run after sundown because the jinn will trip you don’t raise your voice or you will call them to our side

& i’m supposed to be too old to be scared by these things but it works & when haitham opens his mouth to sing again i suggest we watch a movie instead

Boys

simply put haitham has other friends

though outside of school back in our building

his time is mostly mine always home when i knock always knocking when i’m home

but at school where we have no classes together

& different lunch periods i see him sometimes in the hallway where he will always smile or wave then return to startling laughter from the mouths of his friends that tangle of big-shouldered boys their smell of musk & salt crowded around haitham’s smaller frame though among them he seems not only to fit in but taller their crown jewel

their beating heart

for a while he tried to invite me places with them movies & parties & diners & the arcade & i’ve never said yes always too shy & feeling increasingly hot & confused by their boy-smell their big teeth & hands the ways i sometimes want both to be looked at

& to disappear

i think always of the version of myself i’d want them to see to look at in awe to never look away that better

& beautiful version of me that version named yasmeen deserving of each & every pair of their eyes but as myself

i am mostly happy to wave back to haitham in the hallway

& sneak a glance at the backs of the other boys’ unturned heads

The Mirror

some nights when mama is working late

& haitham is with his other friends

i sit at mama’s dresser its enormous mirror

stretched before me mama’s rarely used jars

& powders darkening my lashes flushing

my cheeks carving cheekbones into the roundness of my features a yellow dress from its hanger

wedged in the back of mama’s closet its bright silk from a forgotten time

& in the mirror i become another girl i become yasmeen i practice smiling & laughing & imagine myself talking to the boys i imagine that i am beautiful i imagine someone is looking i play as if

for an audience i coach a twang into my voice

& twirl a lock of hair around my finger

tonight the hair catches in khaltu hala’s ring

& i barely have enough time to untangle it

& slip mama’s dress back into the closet

i hurry into the bathroom as she arrives

Videos

what i’ll never share with anyone is my true

guilty pleasure every weekday after school

the hour or so before haitham comes knocking on my door when my mother is still hours away from returning home i’ll push the coffee table off to the side & watch american music videos try to shape my limbs & waist to match their dancers their high-heeled singers

& imagine my body as one of theirs instead

& i always feel a little less lonely

loving these songs that everyone loves too

but tonight with the volume turned high

i do not hear my mother’s key in the door

& she walks in to find me trying awkwardly

to keep pace with a dance missing the beat

& then catching it only to miss it once again

& when i turn to see her standing smiling

watching me the shame courses hot

through my now-frozen limbs & i am so

embarrassed i start to cry i scramble

for my room & will not emerge for dinner

avoid her eyes for days until i’m sure

she will not mention it

English

most of the other kids in my arabic class

learned english like haitham did by talking

to people speaking up in school going

to movies with classmates being invited

to sleepovers to parties

when haitham & i were younger we would mostly speak to each other in arabic until one day

when he announced that if we were ever going

to lose our accents we would have to speak

english with each other though these days

we kind of have our own language

a perfect mix of the two so we never have

to translate & the words can come out

in whichever language we think them in

i didn’t learn the way he did by talking

to anyone else by making any other friends

i learned alone at home with the television

with the radio learning those songs too

not just the ones from back home i knew all

the ones from here too sang them softly

to myself in my room in the shower

training out my accent shaping my mouth

around the twang sparkling & new

English

standing at my locker i stuff books & papers into my backpack to go home laughter & chatter buzzing all around me i imagine myself

as its silent center a black hole in the universe a big group of boys & girls are clattering together down the hallway joking & squealing

as one of the boys reaches to tickle a girl

her giggles & shrieks piercing the entire hallway before she breaks off into a run to escape

& he follows knocking into me & sending my backpack flying loose papers & books

& pencils scattering everywhere

they both briefly look back & he calls out

sorry! & over the noise of the group returning to its chatter i hear the girl say as i bend

to crush everything back into my bag i don’t think she speaks english

Halloween

haitham rides with me to school & today walks with me to my locker joking about the costumes we pass who’s going to tell jason that dumb jock isn’t a costume do you think tara knows that costume is racist

& we pass a tall boy dressed like a ghost from one of those old movies just a sheet with two eyeholes cut out

& i say to haitham thinking no one else will hear how original & the boy behind the sheet turns to me making sure his friends are within earshot calls in his voice muffled by fabric

i’m dressed as your terrorist mom & everyone howls with laughter another wraps a sweater

around his head like a turban & i’m

your terrorist dad & haitham steps in front don’t say that her father’s dead but his small voice drowns in all the chaos

i look down & watch my feet flicker in & out of their outline my body humming with shame i am a ghost

from no movie anyone would care enough to make

the boys have already forgotten us

& moved farther down the hall

my eyes feel hot & i hate that i’m going to cry

Mama

when i was little i loved to wrap myself

in my mother’s scarves what felt like

a thousand colors knotted into gowns

into headbands covering my sleeping body

on the couch halfway through a movie

what i loved most was to drape one

after another over my face breathe in

her smell of sandalwood & flowers & look out into the world in its new colors the sky

made purple by the pink chiffon made green

by the yellow one the whole apartment

becoming a painting

after that day at the airport years ago

i thought she’d stop wearing it & once

asked her why she didn’t & she lifted

for a moment from her crumpled sadness

into something harder nima, i need you

to understand that it was those men

who were wrong not us i will never be ashamed of where i come from

i will never let you be ashamed

of who we are & what i didn’t ask

is what made her so sure

Yasmeen

it’s twilight i’m home alone & singing

along to my cassettes in my loudest voice

& already feeling a little better

twirling about like in the old movies

where everyone sings & somehow

knows all the words

& maybe i’m too old to be afraid

of being left in the apartment by myself

but i keep thinking i see movement in the corner of my eye snap my head around to find nothing

& to prove to myself that i am brave i close my eyes throw my head back & sing

even louder

& when i open my eyes she is standing

in the corner of the room

& she looks like me but overall somehow better longer in the spine hair smooth & nails unbitten

& so solid i know she’s there but with something blurred around her edges & when she opens

her mouth she speaks in my voice except

she speaks in perfect arabic & her very first word is my name

nima graceful one don’t you wonder don’t you wonder

don’t you & the air behind her shimmers like interrupted water figures swimming through it like fish my father’s face muscled & moving a skyline two rivers & a date palm

a doum tree an old woman in a yellow tobe

her face just like my mother’s & yet another me holding court to a cluster of cinnamon-colored girls our arms around each other’s waists & all of it could be real enough to touch if i wasn’t too scared to move i retreat into my head & remember mama fatheya’s warnings about the spirit world at twilight stories of children trapped on the other side but the girl before me can’t be a jinni she’s me maybe she’s my sister a twin i never knew a secret she’s real enough to touch & doesn’t seem at all evil

but i’m scared & she’s so blurred around the edges like a reflection in water my mother would not like this

& would tell me to recite my prayers to protect myself from jinn protect myself from their temptations i’m not sure this is what she meant but just in case i look squarely at the girl who i know now is yasmeen my other me & tell her to leave me alone

Yasmeen

my mother is watching television one of those

egyptian soap operas crowded with big-bodied

fast-talking light-skinned women wailing

& slapping their cheeks i can’t follow the story & feel how clumsy my arabic is i start & falter & start again mama & she is too absorbed in the program to hear me mama, something happened she lowers

the volume & turns to me & looks so tired i think it might be wrong to burden her & what even do i have to say why did you name me nima?

speak arabic why did you give me this name?

what happened? her attention is slipping away

& a mustached character on the television just slapped another character who i think is supposed to be his brother mama silence mama what is it? an edge of irritation in her voice & i know i cannot tell her about last night & make it make sense but she is looking at me now a single worry line in her perfect face

& all i want is her protection her attention i want her to pull me in & tell me not to be afraid to stroke my head

& murmur a prayer into the part in my hair i don’t know how to make her believe me about the girl i saw yasmeen i don’t know that i believe it

myself what is it, habiba? & i know i can’t tell her so instead i say a boy at school called me a terrorist

& the ready tear in her eye starts to fall

Haitham

meets me at the park & climbs onto the swing next to mine already telling some story some

joke haitham he doesn’t hear me haitham what? & i don’t know what to say first to tell him about yasmeen or that i’m mad at him for telling those boys about my dad but all i can muster is do you believe in jinn? what?

you know, all those stories your grandmother tells she just makes those up to scare us

but what if they’re true?

he raises an eyebrow & breaks into a grin you know, nima, you’re lucky i’m the only one who knows how weird you are which would normally make me laugh but today it cuts today it sounds like you don’t have any other friends i am full of hurt full of anger

& i just need somewhere to put it i am so sick of carrying it around so i let myself give in

i let it take over my voice i let it take over my entire body how could you just tell everyone about my dad like that? it’s so easy for you to tell my business, but where’s your dad? why don’t you tell that story instead?

or actually i feel intoxicated possessed i lick my lips

& continue why don’t you just leave me alone?

you know the only reason we’re even friends is because you live down the hall we’re not even in the same grade

anymore why don’t you go bother some other ninth grader & i storm away the swings creaking on their chains behind me

Bathwater

later in the bathtub i replay it all behind my eyes embarrassed by my overreaction missing haitham

already too frozen by shame to apologize

i look down at my hands warping underwater he’s right there’s something weird about me my body filled with an unfamiliar current my hands flitting in

& out of focus even when i blink & look again i lift the left one out of the bathwater to study in the light translucent as my mother’s best chiffon i try to touch the bathtub & both hands pass through the ceramic

& my body goes hot again this time with fear my hands flicker a final time

then go solid i give them one last shake

& scramble slippery out of the bath

Haitham

i see him at school & he will not look at me i keep checking my hands sure that i have

once again gone invisible but they’re there

every day he’s surrounded by others

making jokes & laughing his enormous laugh & i won’t be the first to apologize the shame still warm

in my stomach but without him i sometimes go days without speaking out loud

my mother at work & then tired

my cassettes wounding me with their familiar songs i go home & climb into bed before it gets dark

& still feel heavy & tired in the morning today i fall asleep again in math & when i wake i can see the desk

through the hum of my translucent arm

Advice

my head is in my mother’s lap her cool hands

on my cheek & in my hair & for a long time she’s quiet unbothered by the tears & snot

soaking into her skirt

at your age she finally says you shouldn’t be spending so much time with boys why don’t you talk to some of the girls in your arabic class & she stops when i start crying so hard my skull feels too tight for my brain

& we sit like this for what feels eternal she sighs

& smooths my hair i see you two together & it doesn’t seem right for you to be apart i’m sure he misses you too why don’t you try giving him a call

Calling Haitham

his grandmother answers the phone & though it’s late she tells me haitham isn’t home she sounds surprised he told me he was with you i feel a little prickle of guilt knowing he’s going to be in trouble

& it seems rude just hanging up the call without asking after mama fatheya’s health so i chew my thumbnail while she lists the day’s creaking & aches

i study my hands for another nail to bite & remember them shimmering in the bathwater though today

they are solid & warm with blood & when she finally pauses for breath i see my chance mama fatheya, what do you know about jinn? are they real? are they bad?

do they really ever come to our side?

i hear her groan into her chair with a sigh

& wet her lips before she begins

of course they’re real there are all sorts of creatures you know nearly human & just outside our line of sight they’ve never given me any trouble though of course i use the stories to get you children to behave my husband (god rest his soul) couldn’t see them & just thought the house was haunted they rarely linger & on this side they don’t look fully there

& of course you must have heard there was

a nasty rumor for some time right after you were born that there were two of you in the womb the other girl never born one child for each parent one child for each world i hear her bite wetly into something & chew while she thinks anyway why do you ask

Jinn

maybe yasmeen was sent to bring me home

to my father his other daughter

my other me maybe i am fading from this world

to grow solid on the other side

Boys

i pass haitham & his friends in the hall

& without his usual wave & smile he becomes another brick in the impenetrable wall of boys

who don’t see me

again today they laugh & run & shove

their way down the hallway & again

as i stand at my locker my open backpack

is knocked over by one of their games

this time two of haitham’s friends this time

no one apologizes i look up from

my scattered books to find haitham

walking away with them

haitham impossibly far away

haitham who will not turn to look at me

Arabic Class

haitham still sits behind me in arabic class on sunday though when i arrive he is already showing something in his notebook to a girl sitting next to him

& they laugh together & do not stop

or look up as i take my seat

as the teacher drones on i study each face around the classroom the popular ones i secretly think of as the americans spotless high-top sneakers

the girls in zigzagged braids & tight t-shirts the boys with the slightly swollen piercing in their left ears where they’d been forced to remove the earring

before coming to class

the girl talking to haitham is wearing jeans that look brand-new the baby hairs at her hairline slicked down with a toothbrush & through her eyes

i try to see his scrawniness his used-up clothes

& instead find only the face carved from marble geometry of the cheekbones little gap in his teeth as he laughs his way through another joke

new broadness of his shoulders

that makes him look despite his short stature

like he takes up all the space in the room

i remember when we first started coming here

when i’d just started growing & all my clothes were too small overhearing some girl whisper

to another that i wore such tight jeans

because i didn’t have a father & before

i could even think to cry haitham leaning up

from his seat behind me to ponder loudly

that if both her parents had let her out of the house with that ugly t-shirt on then i was honestly

better off with just the one i remember

being warmed by the ring of my own laugh

& feel myself sitting alone now haunted

by that old & forgotten sound

The Headscarf

i know something happened on the news again

because my mother has stopped wearing her scarf

to work & instead tucks each strand of her hair into a knit hat the nape of her neck new

& tender in the light she who once said

i will never be ashamed of where i come from i will never let you be ashamed of who we are seems to have changed her mind & i wonder

if this means i should feel ashamed too

i float through another day at school

sleeping & flickering & talking to no one so many times each day i look down to see

my arms legs stomach gone translucent

& each time i think with something almost

like relief that i will finally disappear my body returns & i think i’ve made the whole thing up at day’s end i clang my locker shut

& four boys large enough to block out the light are closing in around me

one pulls the neck of his t-shirt up around his face a clumsy hijab two others hoot with laughter

& follow suit & for a moment i think they might forget me laughing together & enjoying their joke

a strip of pale midriff showing on each torso one of them is silent then cuts in my dad’s a pilot his voice wet with poison he could have been on that plane i think he might cry & the sound he chokes out makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle up he turns & shoves me

& i feel the cold metal of the lockers against my back terrorist bitch he spits into my hair

i raise my arms to cover my face i cower & still they move in closer my blood feels hot

& swirls messily through my body

i press my eyes shut & will myself to vanish but when they open i am still there

dampening with sweat i cry out for yasmeen

& they hesitate when nothing happens the boy’s hand clamps onto my shoulder & wrenches me to the ground i hear my heartbeat roaring in my ears

he snarls in pain i look up

& i am outside the circle standing upright & opaque blood packed underneath my nails

The Office

i didn’t get to wash my hands & that’s proof enough that i started it he’s bleeding & i am not

though given their number & how they tower over me the principal decides it wasn’t one-sided

& therefore it’s only fair to suspend all five of us

& sends us out while he calls our homes one by one

Outside the Office

my mother is at work & i’m not allowed to leave until someone comes for me my nails are bitten

to the quick & sting i can’t scrape out

the dark lines of blood

one by one the other mothers file in painted

& hairsprayed & perfumed clicking in their heeled shoes & bustling into the principal’s office without looking at me not even bothering

to shut the door

their indignation rings out into the hall

no way would my son varsity honor roll his permanent record my son my son an emotional time you know, of course, that his father’s a pilot? says she screamed at them in her language menacing so of course, you understand you understand thank you exactly i knew you’d understand & he walks them out to their cars where they shake hands all smiling

Why Here

around sunset mama fatheya comes to get me

i tell the office she is my grandmother

& does not speak any english they look into her wizened face & find its matching brown

in mine & let her take me home

my shirt is torn & when she asks all i’ll say is that i fought another girl i tell her my mother will be home soon thank her & let myself

into the apartment where i sit for hours

on our noisy couch still covered in its plastic i am too tired to move to wash or change

my ripped clothes or scrub my fingernails

with a brush until the blood is my own

dusk falls & night falls further my mother’s key clicks into the door & she walks in to find me silent in the dark shirt torn & something

breaking behind my eyes & before she can ask i am frothing with anger at everything at her

the name tag crooked on her ill-fitting blouse

the hat slipping from her face & showing strands of her still-dark hair her sad too-blue jeans

my only family my only person & it all

feels like her fault why did you bring us here?

they hate us silence she does not tell me to speak arabic why did you bring me here

to be tortured to be alone why would you do that to me? she opens her mouth to speak

& nothing comes out my anger grows a second head & makes me cruel i wish baba was here instead of you i wish someone was here who could protect me & i will not stay to see her cry so i shuffle into the bathroom

to run the water to scalding

Ghosts

after i’ve sat in the bath until the water

gets cold i climb out & dry off

walk out to see my mother sitting

dejected on the couch her face

in her tired hands

before i can slink off to my room

i hear her voice a new sharpness

nima come here tell me

what happened & for a moment

i think of telling her everything

instead of carrying it all around

myself i think of laying my head

in her lap & asking her to help

to carry some of it with me

but at the sight of her head covered

in that sad knit hat i know

i will not give her anything more

to carry i can’t so all i say

is that i fought another girl

at school & i am almost relieved

by her anger the way it hardens

her soft & hurt places i don’t even

know who you are anymore

where is my daughter where

has she gone

& when she says this

i swear for a moment i see yasmeen

flickering in the corner of the room

but i ignore her to instead turn

to my mother & snarl & where

is my mom i feel sometimes

like i got two ghost parents

before turning to slam the door

to my room

The Silence

i’m suspended from school for a week

my mother leaves for work in the morning

& i hear her come quietly home at dark

i have not spoken or heard her speak

since i raised my voice that night

i spend hours imagining myself

as the other girl yasmeen not only the spirit-girl who came to see me but the one i built for years myself perfect in all the ways i am flawed

beautiful bright & humming & full up

with laughter beloved & blooming somewhere

kinder where her language is her own

& unhunted no one tells her to go back

where she came from because she is home

& known & never disappears into the bathwater isn’t washed out by tears & maybe i’m

all wrong not because i’ve come to the wrong

country maybe any country on this side

of the membrane between worlds isn’t mine

& as if to confirm my body starts its new & strange hum as both my legs go abstract as static my hips & stomach

& chest flicker in & out of color my arms i shift my weight & the plastic couch covering does not make a single noise remains silent as if completely

untouched i check for a reflection in the dark surface of the dormant television & only the slightest outline of a girl looks back i call out my voice hoarse from disuse i’m ready now & wait for the jinn to come fetch me to shepherd me to the other side i close my eyes & call again heart beating in my throat a moment passes then another & i open

to see my whole body restored solid & human

& crackling the plastic on the couch

Alone

i thought haitham would call & he hasn’t

i imagine him bright & laughing with his

real friends & my loneliness grows teeth

i feel them chewing at my stomach

i miss my mother i hear her moving

through the apartment making only

the faintest sounds thin stream of

running water hushed sear of an egg

frying in butter her soft step leaving

in the mornings returning at dusk

murmuring to khaltu hala on the phone

& i ache imagining haitham somewhere

in the apartment on the other end of the line

not a day passes without a plate

left on the counter when i emerge

from my room into the afternoon light

never a note or a knock but always

without fail a plate & warm pita bread

in its basket covered with a dishcloth

cut fruit in the refrigerator curved slices

of pear sometimes apple today an orange

cold & thrilling & tart

i miss her voice naming me her small

& cool hands her unlined girl-face her rare & lilting laugh i miss her younger before i knew her dancing in the photo

boundless & open & full of dreaming

dressed in color jasmine blooms falling

from her neighborhood tree to rest

beneath her feet i mourn that girl & i miss my mother the only person i belong to

the one who chose me by choosing my name

Mama

i’m sorry i blamed you i’m sorry

i yelled i’m sorry you got this storm cloud for a daughter instead of the flowers

you deserved i’m sorry our life

is so small i’m sorry you didn’t get to be young that you got me instead i’m sorry you’re alone i’m sorry i’m the only family you got to keep i’m sorry you lost your country & got one that doesn’t want us i’m sorry you work all day & still don’t have anything for yourself i’m sorry on the days you wear the hat instead of

the scarf & scared on the days you don’t i’m sorry you didn’t get the daughter

you dreamt up the girl named for

her sweetness & blooming i’m sorry you got me instead & were left all alone to raise me i’m sorry my arabic

isn’t better i’m sorry for being so american in here & not enough of one

out there i’m sorry i blamed your scarf when they called me a terrorist i’m sorry i blamed your loss for the ways my life

feels empty i’m sorry for not making you laugh enough for never trying anymore

to make you smile i’m sorry you’re lonely i am too i’m sorry i’m not better company i’m sorry

that i’m so gloomy that i’m not

beautiful like you i’m sorry for reminding you of my father for reminding you of what you lost i’m sorry you made this life

for me instead of the bright & bountiful one you could have tried to make for only

yourself i’m sorry i embarrass you

i’m sorry i don’t have anything to show you

that it was all worth it i’m sorry

i shouted at you i’ll say

when my mother gets home

Yasmeen

i’ve been in the bathtub so long i worry

something might take root

my fading fingers are graying & wrinkled

from the water i chant my apology

to my mother out loud until i feel it

memorized then hold my breath & slide

my body down the tub until my head

is underwater & in the silence i decide

yasmeen is the daughter my mother

deserves bright spot in her weary day

sprig of jasmine in her small life

something to be proud of at last

i sit up in the tub & call her in every

way i can first by name shouting it

then chanting then with a plea & still

she is not here i remember the night

she appeared the cassette & my closed

eyes mama fatheya’s warnings don’t

raise your voice or you will call them to

our side & i sing mouth open & eyes shut i gather all the lyrics i remember

& try to lure her again

& when i’ve exhausted all the words i know

to all the songs i open my eyes

& still she will not answer me

Haitham

my mother comes home & settles heavily

onto the couch tired face in her hands

i sit next to her & begin but it comes out

all wrong out of order i’m sorry you got

me as a daughter instead of the one you deserve i’m sorry i’m me & not yasmeen i’m sorry

& the telephone won’t stop ringing i falter before i can finish & before she says anything she crosses to answer the call yes

hi, khalti fatheya what is it what happened a silence then another my mother

clamping her hand to her mouth

her eyes filling still silent yes we’re coming we’re coming now & she fits the phone back into its cradle get your jacket what happened you have to get your jacket where are we going she will not answer & after she locks the door behind us my mother cradles my face with her cold hands

we are going to the hospital it’s haitham

The Bus

the bus clatters down the crowded street filled as always to the brim with people all of us in shades of brown of sepia & the smell packs tight around us bodies worked too hard & gone sour

i am standing with my silent mother my distracted mother swaying beside me & whispering a softest prayer under her breath her eyes distant & downcast i miss her

& reach finally out to hold her hand right then the bus hits a bump in the pockmarked road my mother’s hand pulls impossibly far away from mine to grab the rail above

& i shove my fist deep into my pocket

shame hot against my throat

Haitham

seems so small crowded by machines

keeping him alive i’ve never seen him

so still so emptied of laughter a rip

in his right cheek the length of a finger

sewn up in dark stitches bandages winding

his forehead tube inserted in the corner

of his cracked mouth

mama fatheya has not greeted us has not

moved from her station at his bedside leaning

heavily on her walking stick with one hand

prayer beads cabling through the other

while she recites a stream of indiscernible

language i let my eyes blur & can

see it pouring from her mouth like smoke

& absorbing into his body

behind me his mother is sobbing to mine

my fault i sent him to the bigala after dark i should have kept him home it isn’t safe not for any of us he’s only a little boy

& the story unfurls a group of fully grown

men circling him in the parking lot taking

turns with their boots with a bat until

the shopkeeper hearing the commotion

comes out with his shotgun & scatters them

squats over haitham’s broken body groceries smashed & scattered on the asphalt

& while he gathers up the boy a brick

then another goes crashing through the windows

of his store & he tells haitham’s stricken mother i don’t understand between blows they were calling him mohammed

& i’m choking on the story on the smells on the drone of prayers streaming from mama fatheya’s unmoving mouth i can’t bear to be in this building full of dying & push my way out of the room my mother calling out behind me

Hala

the hospital is a maze every room its own private chamber of grief i wander numbly through the stark halls

& as much as it hurts to see haitham like this when he is usually a clatter of movement always a flurry of laughter

& talking & motioning with his hands his face’s hundred cartoonish expressions to see him motionless

the brokenness of his face

it hurts more to be away the superstition

as always arrives to convince me he cannot die as long as i’m in the room & i turn back to find him outside the door my mother is sitting with khaltu hala whose sobs have stilled her eyes are haunted staring into some invisible point in space the words pouring from her mouth he’s all i have he’s the only thing in this world that’s mine it should have been me i’d give anything for it to have been me instead i brought him here so we could have a different kind of life & even here i couldn’t keep him safe so what was all of it for? everything i lost it was all so i could give him a different life what if i lose him too? & here her face crumples her whole body collapses into grief my mother gathers her in her arms

& rocks her like a baby & i wait for her to make the empty comforting promise to say he’ll be okay to say he’ll wake up i want to hear it too but she will not lie to her sobbing friend instead she repeats

until it is almost a chant i know i know i know

Touched

it’s the last morning of my suspension & we are crowded into the bus my mother & i

pointed back toward the hospital

her face is far away troubled we have not eaten since the night before & i mean to leave her be but i can’t hold all this myself mama silence mama what is it? what will i do if he dies?

the bus jolts to a stop & a stranger a man is pushed up against my mother her face changes & she snarls don’t touch me don’t you dare touch me & turns away ignoring his flustered apology she is silent a long time then speaks without looking at me her eyes in some faraway place that hurts her there were officers they stopped us in our car & wanted to touch me there were so many of them teeth shining in the dark banging on the car windows with their guns your father he would not unlock the doors

& here her eyes empty entirely

when he tried to drive us away they shot him her eyes are large & tearless hands clutching her coat against her shrunken body i cannot stand to hear the rest of the story my eyes are hot & my whole body is ringing

& i can’t stand to be so near her open hurting pushed into her perfumed side by the crowd

so i shove my way through

the sour crush of bodies & off the bus

my mother’s hoarse cry

my name ripping through the air

sealed in by the closing doors

Running

my mother is screaming something i cannot hear

i hesitate & look to her through the window of the moving bus then turn & run down a block crowded with pedestrians ducking & turning

& crossing busy streets i run until my lungs are searing my heart hammering & swollen

i look up & find myself in an unfamiliar part of the city & feel faint for want of water

just ahead a cluster of tents & clamoring

& music smells of charring meat & clapping

& laughter & bells for a moment i want

to go back to my mother to apologize

to sit with her by haitham’s bed & hold his hand but my hunger heaves my tired body

toward the smell into the festival

wetting my chapped mouth

Street Fair

i wander through the maze of color & smell

a parade running like a vein through the middle

& all around i see booths draped in what looks like every flag i think for a second to look

for mine & of course it is not there mine

not a culture exciting enough for a booth for a fair only ever mentioned in a list of warnings on the news at a stall draped in the same red white black green as our flag i ask for food for water the seller names a price i feel for my wallet & remember it with a jolt sitting untouched on the kitchen counter

& my armpits go damp with fear in the autumn chill i turn away & am pulled as if by water

into the current of dancers musicians horses

& the metallic trill of tambourines throbbing of drums

& i cannot see anything but the bright rustle of skirts of belled ankles arms twisting up & heads

thrown back the crowd pressing in closer

& pulling me along my feet sometimes

not touching the ground

Houses

the parade releases me right as my lungs begin

to seize for air i gasp & stumble into a quiet street bent over & coughing pulling the late autumn’s clean cold into my throat in ragged gulps the minutes pass & i heave myself upright & take in the block ahead gilded with bright foliage scattering golden leaves into the street & onto the row of long staircases leading up to each high house each railing molded in intricate patterns grapevines long-haired sirens tiny metal flowers the light in each window warm

& thrumming with the satisfied lives inside

Trespassing

halfway down the block i hear the squeak

of an unlatched gate swaying in the stirring

breeze the leaves swirling upward in circles

from the pavement the windows of the house

above darkened & quiet

i have to keep moving to outrun this day

this week the sight of haitham’s split mouth

taped to its tube i push through the gate

& hear my heart pounding in my ears

muffling everything else i pause & my mother’s animal cry don’t touch me they shot him rips back into my thoughts another step forward

& it disappears the fleeting thought he’s dead because of her drowned by a warm wash of guilt another step & it goes silent i move unseeing this way until i have turned from the side of the house

to its backyard & see the enormous swimming pool stretched across its water warm & wafting steam in little curls into the air

The Water

before i can talk myself out of what is definitely a stupid idea i’ve undressed & lowered myself into the water searching for something like

the echoing peace of the bathtub at home the pool is colder than it looks & smells sharply of chlorine i am not a good swimmer but i can keep myself

generally afloat & paddle a slow lap around the edge then another another & finally sucking in a mouthful of air i submerge my head

& force my eyes open against the sting

i blow a thick stream of bubbles into the blue quiet

& kick myself forward barely moving before

i have to come up again for air the world so loud

& violent in its color after the dark silence of the water another intake of breath & i plunge again into the quiet propel myself forward with my clumsy

kicks my graceless arms finding a strange music in the water’s weight stretching forward then arcing to my sides every movement a victory

of my inelegant body & the simple motion

soothes me the guarantee that if i only kick

my legs & pull with my arms my body will

drive forward every moment i raise my head

for air feels like an interruption i swim this way until my limbs feel emptied of their bones

Caught

so tired i feel a little loosened

from my body i crumple by the edge

of the pool & shiver blotting myself

dry with the thick fleece of my sweatshirt

i pile my clothes back on my soaked hair

dripping a steady stream down the nape

of my neck the first actual fun i’ve managed

since fighting with haitham though even

thinking his name calls back the ache

& the tears grow hot in my chlorine-stung eyes i stretch onto my back by the pool’s edge feeling thoroughly sorry for myself falling again into wishing for another self another life until the distant squeak of the gate opening stills my whole

humming body into listening waiting to be caught an older man hair graying around his ears

strides into the yard a tiny limp dragging

his left foot a beat behind the other & there is no way he has not seen me he stops just short

of the pool’s edge & bends at the waist

peering into the shimmering water for anything

inside i wince at his right foot stepping

heavily on the ends of my drenched hair

& look guiltily up into his face his gray eyes sliding unfocused across then past

my splayed body he shrugs blows into

his thick hands for warmth & makes his way

slowly back into the house i sit up & glance down at my body & my body is not there

The Diner

i pull myself up from the tiled edge of the pool

& hurry out into the hushed street i watch myself flicker in & out before finally going solid i think i have maybe just saved my own life by being

unnoticeable i want to figure out what

makes me disappear what brings me back

i comb through my memories of disappearing

in the bathtub at school now at the edge

of a stranger’s swimming pool each time i’d been feeling that i didn’t want to be myself wishing for a different life

& the thought clicks loudly into place i can disappear by dwelling on the wish that i was not here

that yasmeen had been born instead

by now my hunger is a sharp pang heightened

by swimming & running my eyes go in & out of focus

& when they blur over i see new movement

figures disappearing when i blink & look again strange birds delicate & barely formed

twisting translucent through the air

solemn cats assembling silently up each staircase covered in a layer of mist

another blink & they’ve cleared away all except the slightest outline of a girl gliding halfway up the block away from me yasmeen she’s come

back i hurry along behind her resisting the urge to call out in case she flickers away

& leaves me behind she turns into another quiet street

& melts into the closed door of a small diner i push the door open & follow & in the clatter of dishes

& talk i know she’s left me again i have no money

& no plan & am governed now only by my hunger so i tremble into a vinyl booth & ask the cheerful lipsticked waitress for a cheeseburger fries

a strawberry milkshake mozzarella sticks a slice of apple pie i down my first glass of water

in two gulps & ask for another & when the food arrives crowded onto my small table i eat steadily without coming up for air until i am so full i feel a little sick

The Stranger

now that i’ve eaten & can think clearly i understand how much trouble i am about to get into i maybe could have wheedled a free plate of fries some water from the kind waitress with my sad story

& empty pockets but how to ask for an entire feast after i’ve already eaten it

to buy myself some time i ask for the menu again pretend to study it while she clears my round

of greasy plates

my heart is knocking loudly around my body & any minute now i am going to cry i close my eyes

& before i can open them a man’s voice

so close he must be at my table asks me if i am all right my eyes spring open & he is sitting across from me his eyes are large & pouched sad but not unkind their sharp blue not unlike pool water stark in their dim & bloodshot whites he’s the age i imagine my father to be though his gray-brown mustache

is wispy & his beard missing in patches like the new growths of the boys at my school but his suit looks expensive his fingernails short & clean

& polished & when the waitress approaches

he hands her two bills from a roll he produces & bares his gray teeth in a smile that does not quite reach his eyes that will be all for my niece & just a coffee for me cream

& three sugars thanks she leaves

& he turns the gray smile to me asks again

if i’m okay & do i need help getting home

i close my eyes again mama’s voice my whole life never go anywhere alone with a man not even the next room not even an uncle or cousin not even

& in a prickle of tears i realize why & swat her voice from my head before the first drop falls i am so tired i just want to go home i just want

i am so full of wanting so much of it for what i cannot change again haitham’s broken face

again my mother’s shriek they shot him i am so tired of everything happening to me at once he seems

nice enough & i want so badly

to go home i open my eyes & nod

The Stranger

i fumble with my seat belt while the engine wheezes awake i’ve given him my address i’m so tired

& just want to go home his car is too hot

& smells like old meat something sweetly rotting i peel off my thick sweatshirt & fold it into my lap he has not spoken & my skin prickles with his looking at a red light he turns to me his teeth glinting wetly in a smile & murmurs so quietly i can barely hear him you have a beautiful neck & turns back to face ahead when the light changes i feel

knotted & embarrassed by the compliment

& put my sweatshirt back on

the neighborhoods crawl past the windows of the car not one of them mine or anything i recognize

after another turn the highway stretches endless before us the sun setting in a riot of color & fire

i do not want to make him upset but i know now that this is not the way home i wet my chapped lips

& squeak out a pitiful excuse me & he does not turn i clear my throat & try it louder when he faces me i speak very slowly to keep the tremble in my voice at bay excuse me, hi, if you’d like i can try & give you directions? i don’t think this is, i mean, i’m not sure but i don’t think this is the right way? & he smiles kindly & says gently oh, of course, no, i know, it’s just that you live a few towns over & before i can finish exhaling in relief he continues so i thought we’d check into a hotel & do the rest of the trip in the morning

& i feel like i’ve swallowed my own sinking heart

The Driveway

he steers the car into the circular driveway of a hotel hands his keys to a young man dressed in dark blue velvet

& motions me in through the revolving door tells me to hang back while he handles the room

& when he’s gone i look frantically around for help but everywhere i look i see men & more men & i cannot risk one worse than the one that brought me

i feel a hand on my arm my body already on high alert as i turn ready to use my teeth my nails the hand is not quite solid not quite warm humming

beneath the surface with something i can’t name

& before i can speak she begins

& the voice in her mouth is like mine the hand on my arm exactly like mine you have to go now get on that bus & all my questions root me to the spot her eyes are large & urgent

are my eyes yasmeen more solid than i’ve ever

seen her motions again frantically & when i still do not move she turns hurries down

the driveway & climbs into a small bus marked AIRPORT SHUTTLE & in an instant i am unfrozen adrenaline coursing through my shaking limbs as i move to follow her i slip quietly

back out through the revolving door hurry toward the bus the driver smoking a cigarette on one side does not

see me climb in through the open door on the other

& inside yasmeen has disappeared once more

i crawl into the very last row & cower as the shuttle fills in sparsely with passengers though no one sits in the back or sees me crouched in the dark my face pressed into the smell of leather blood roaring in my ears she’s real & she saved me & i need her to come back the driver finishes his cigarette

& climbs cheerfully on board

& the shuttle glides off into the night

The Airport

at the airport the crowd swirls busily around me i barely avoid being flattened by a luggage cart

& an irritated woman asks me to please move her please pronounced like a threat i scurry into an empty corner to think & hear a familiar note of arabic in the air then another i look up

& the counter in front of me is crowded with my people carts piled high with taped-up

suitcases & overflowing shopping bags mothers draped in bright fabrics clamping rowdy children to their sides a small boy is wailing angry tears spouting down his face while his father tries

to soothe him you’ll love it back home wait until you meet your cousins your grandparents

& see the river & eat the sweetest guava you’ll ever taste i’ll teach you how to climb trees how to swim you’ll see you are going to be so happy & with a pang i miss my mother

Broken Arabic

i spot a stooped woman mama fatheya’s age

seated to the side in a wheelchair while her family checks their bags i approach not realizing

i’m speaking in english until she shakes her head

& repeats in her gravelly voice only arabic in my clumsy arabic i try to explain that i need help getting home that i’m all alone & afraid

& don’t know who can help me i stumble

through the sentences pausing to remember

each word & finally the only sentence i can assemble is i want to go home i want to go home where is your mother? she asks concerned

& through my tears i blubber wetly at home are you here all alone? & i nod & you don’t have any way of getting home? & i shake my head

& in the mess i’ve made with my broken arabic she calls to her daughter this poor child

wants to go home we have to help her & i don’t realize that i’ve mixed up the words & the word for home i’d been using this whole time was homeland

No Daughter

the younger woman puts one hand on my shoulder nails stained red-brown with henna

smooths my hair with her other palm

& asks do you speak arabic?

still flustered by the spreading chaos i’ve made with my half language i shake my head no

she clicks her tongue in disapproval & turns to speak to the older woman look at her hair the dirty clothes i don’t think this girl belongs to anyone no daughter of mine no girl i named would ever be allowed out looking like this she must not have a family at least not one that she matters to & i feel shame like bile rising sour in my throat she looks over to me & smiles

while continuing through gritted teeth to her mother stupid child doesn’t even speak arabic & all my rage all my frustration my exhaustion my fear fill me to bursting my arabic finds me & i hiss

up into her widening eyes i have a mother

i belong to someone i belong before i turn on my heel & storm away & see yasmeen

again flickering in & out of the crowd

headed for the elevator

The Elevator

i ram a button to summon the service elevator

out of places to go so i’m following yasmeen

& i want to track her down

to ask her to help me again the metal doors

slide open & shut once i’m inside

& she is not there

& in the silver quiet i feel the exhaustion soak my body & i feel homesick for the confines

of the apartment safe from this enormous world

& its horrors i want to go home i want

to find my way home the elevator has not moved

i want to go home i push the button to open the doors deciding instead to find the stairs the doors part in a surge of warm air outside the airport is gone

& in its place is the photograph of my parents life-sized & real with smells & dry expansive heat everything still frozen in its place my mother

laughing & dancing & in love my father his hand mere moments from her waist so close i can see

the sweat beading his brow the mosquito

a second from his neck my father’s dark hair

lush & dense & coiled flimsy cotton of his shirt soaked

in sweat little gap in his front teeth & the look in his eyes dazed by his good luck

yasmeen steps into the frame & she looks fully human solid & actually walking instead

of her usual supernatural glide from this close we’re not so different she looks like me dressed in costume with better grooming & better posture but still me extends her hand & says are you coming?

& when i take it her hand is solid & warm a real pulse full of real blood

The Photograph

we step into the party at the exact moment

my father’s hand meets my mother’s waist

& pulls her closer to him her laugh rings out

& soaks into the music the night black

as velvet but for the glow of fairy lights strung across the trees the air smells green & floral

& in the distance the faintest smell of smoke after a few songs i tear my eyes reluctantly

from my parents to take in the other guests

at a table playing cards i spot khaltu amal unbleached

& smiling her hair fastened in two skinny braids

& leaned up against a jasmine tree mostly hidden by its branches is haitham’s mother khaltu hala twisting a pearl ring around her index finger & joking slyly with a man whose face is exactly

haitham’s & just beyond them on a makeshift rickety stage the band pours its song into the night the drummer my arabic teacher lanky

& with a full afro of hair restored tie loosened around his neck on the keyboard is abbas

who drives the bus & leaned up against

the microphone crooning into it like a lover

barely recognizable in his joy is the man who runs the bigala though here his face is unlined

& without its signature scowl they all look so happy so young & full of what is possible how could they ever have left why couldn’t i

have been born into this version of us have

grown up being sung to swung from arm

to loving arm by both my parents by their friends everyone still alive shining in the heat back home

Home

at first i think i must be dreaming or making it all up but i walk across the garden & feel the grass crunching beneath my feet i put my hands

against a date palm & its trunk is warm & rough to my touch & in front of me is a jasmine tree its flowers blooming & perfume heady & sweet

& when i reach for one it comes away easily into my hand i could spend hours just watching my parents dance watching the muscles animating my father’s living face but i feel tugged toward the exit by my other longing i slip through the clanging metal gate my lost country just outside

Home

on the quiet street outside i mark the site

of the party by its muffled sounds then turn

a corner & find myself walking along the river rippling in the darkness the aching notes

of the call to prayer echoing out

from a minaret nearby & before i can finish catching my breath i feel a hand on my back

a waft of scent what might be sesame & a flower whose name i never learned & i look up to see yasmeen beside me my own awe reflected

in her widened eyes the eyes exactly mine my gratitude makes me awkward & i do not look at her as i murmur thank you for helping me & the hand is on my arm again solid this time as she replies of course

& i don’t know what else to say so we are silent for a while before she speaks again have you heard that saying

“there but for the grace of god go i” & i shake my head it’s basically, like, that could have been me, you know?

& that’s what i would have wanted someone to do for me so—

& as she says this i can’t believe i haven’t already asked so i interrupt wait, so, are you me? & i know it sounds stupid as i say it & i already feel the warm spread of shame but she doesn’t laugh

& she doesn’t say no instead she bites her lip in thought well, i’m yasmeen she begins

which, by the way, hi here a small smile so, we’re parallel versions of each other like, you’re me if something different were to happen somewhere in the story & it’s like i’ve always imagined i know the answer before i even ask

but still i ask in your version, is baba alive? she nods

& mama fatheya’s voice comes back to me clear as a recording one child for each world

& i am tripping over myself with questions

enough that i don’t register the hollowness of her answers is he amazing? yes is mama happy? all the time do you have a lot of friends? her face makes an expression i can’t name & for a moment she looks nothing like me sure what are their names? what are they like? just some girls from arabic class. they’re nice & haitham? & instead of answering she turns the line of questioning on me do you also collect cassettes? & i can’t contain my excitement oh my god, yes, you too? & she laughs in recognition yes! what’s your favorite? i love the sayed khalifa one

& immediately we are singing the line in unison

& for a moment all my questions are forgotten my racing head quieted by this moment of kinship i sit awhile in the feeling as yasmeen peers

into the river lost in some thought of her own until i ask have you been here before? & she shakes her head only in dreams & old pictures & she says it exactly like i would have & even though she already knows i turn to face her reach to shake her hand then decide

it would be weird so i pull my hand back & wave you probably know this already but it feels weird not to say hi, i’m nima she smiles & i watch my face in hers my smile stretching into hers but the eyebrows

are less unruly & the hair is plaited neatly into a thick untousled braid & i can’t help but ask how do you get your hair to do that? to stay put? & she smiles again sesame oil & edge control as i will myself to remember all of it this not-dream this country this other girl together we stand at the riverbank & watch the moon float over the water illuminating the city in ghostly colors

Haitham

we walk back into the thrum of the party

& i don’t know who i want to follow first

my parents still dancing & whispering

to one another bright center in the knot

of dancers but my attention is caught

once again by the man leaned up against

the tree with khaltu hala haitham’s

disappeared father living & gesturing wildly with his hands as he talks in the exact manner

of haitham his wiry frame & big teeth

walking next to me as we approach them

yasmeen whispers it’s amazing how he looks

exactly like haitham & i don’t think to ask how she knows haitham’s face

haitham’s name if he’s there in her version

of the story too shocked myself

by the resemblance the face i know

better than my own fastened onto

this one i’ve never seen haitham’s father

absent from any photograph haitham’s father

whose name he never says khaltu hala never says mama fatheya never says & here he is

smelling of cinnamon & sweat running

his thumb across the ring on hala’s finger

until a voice calls out ashraf! how are

you, man? & he pulls his hand away as if bitten steps a respectful distance

from khaltu hala & turns to greet his friend while hala slinks off into the dancing crowd

shame twisting itself in her face

Ashraf

torn between following khaltu hala

back to my parents & haitham’s

mystery father the story written

in their secrecy i give in to my curiosity

& inch closer to hear him chatting

with his friend work’s fine,

you know, same old, never thought

i’d end up working for the government

but, you know & his friend cuts in

we understand you have mouths

to feed how are the kids? your wife?

& i work to unscramble these facts

in my knotted brain kids a wife

who it is clear now was not hala

& haitham never mentioned having siblings

never mentions his father at all

despite the life he spends wearing that man’s

exact haunted face

Visitors

i walk dazed back into the knot of dancers

& just as i reach out to touch my mother’s arm yasmeen grabs my wrist stop she can’t see you we’re only visitors, you understand?

we’re not part of this part of time you’ll only scare her & i pull my hand back to my side then why are we here? does this mean we can’t stay?

& in her face i watch my features soften almost as if with pity i think we’re just supposed to watch to learn something maybe fill in some of the gaps we both have answer some of the questions, you know? & something in my gut is telling me there’s more but i nod watching

khaltu hala approach my mother her jaw hardened to keep the tears in yasmeen moves closer

to listen & i will too but first i steal an open hungry stare into my father’s living face before yasmeen tugs on my hand & motions for us to follow

as my mother & khaltu hala

walk to a quiet corner of the party

aisha, i’m pregnant hala whispers

as understanding arranges itself first onto

my mother’s face then panic oh, hala oh no

after finally submitting to an embrace hala turns to go home refusing my mother’s offer for company i’m tired i’ll call you in the morning

& leaves my mother to sit alone with the news worry creasing her face

hands absently finding her stomach

i haven’t told anyone yet, but so am i

Haitham

never talks about his father even when we were little the contract was wordless & understood the contract i broke & i am afraid i’ve broken everything along with it i wonder how much he knows about this man whose face he wears i wonder if he knows how alike their features are their laugh their electric darting movements i wonder if he ever feels unwanted if it hurts him to hear me rhapsodize about my immortalized father while never asking about his dreams of his i wonder if he thinks about him what he thinks about him i wonder if he’s still alive haitham’s father where he lives

i will not let myself wonder

if haitham is still alive if i’ll ever see him again

The Lesson

khaltu amal who i guess is not my khaltu yet just amal a bride-to-be stands facing my mother not yet

my mother just aisha in the newly gathered circle of women some accompanied by drums

some clapping their two hands aisha dances & amal tries to mirror her movements but cannot catch

the drumbeat my mother stops & works to rearrange amal’s posture just as she does with mine

back arched arms pulled back at the shoulder

like resting wings chin tilted skyward

try it again from the waist this time, not the legs slowly good! now faster & as the dance arranges itself into amal’s formerly graceless body i see her face light up in a smile not the strained grimace i’ve seen her wearing all my life this one reaches her eyes & glows

& together she & aisha fall into step the others rising from their chairs to join them one of them calls to my mother aisha graceful one they should have

named you

nima grace & my mother laughs it’s too late to change mine but maybe i’ll save it for my daughter

The Lovers

the band plays its final soaring note & the party releases its clamor of guests they pile into cars & onto motorcycles & i try to memorize each face before it absorbs back into history

my parents hand in hand set off on foot

& walk the wide road along the river

their chatter soft in the cooling air yasmeen & i hurrying behind them trying to get close enough to hear my mother’s voice floats toward us

i think it’s a girl a daughter her small hands unchanged by the years touching her stomach in awe

& though his face creases a little in an expression i do not know i quickly forget

because for the first time i am hearing

my father’s voice deep & throaty

a pleasant growl wrapping itself around

my mother’s name in wonder in disbelief

& with a whoop of excitement

he picks his beloved up by the waist their child piecing together inside he spins her around

until they are both dizzy & helpless with laughter

Yasmeen

my parents just ahead of us walking hand

in hand & content the hot air

like a woolen blanket thick & comforting

even with the sweat glossing my brow

prickling in my armpits i turn to yasmeen

i have so many questions for you

i don’t even know where to start

& she smiles me too. can i go first?

i nod & spend the rest of the walk answering her about school & arabic class & my mother & haitham

& mama fatheya & khaltu hala about all

the contours of my small life the photographs

& old songs i collect i tell her about my loneliness my mother’s loneliness & i even

with a little pang of embarrassment tell her

about the music videos about dancing

& the way it makes me feel to forget my body to imagine it freer & full of grace

& she listens rapt nodding & exclaiming

& asking more questions & it feels so good to feel so interesting to be attended to

in her unblinking way & now my father is reaching for the gate & i haven’t gotten to ask yasmeen a single question of my own

The House

we arrive outside a whitewashed house

where my father unlocks the gate

inside a tiled courtyard scattered

with potted flowers gnarled cacti

walls carpeted in bougainvillea

a jasmine tree thickly perfuming the air

my grandmother her face rounded

like my mother’s hair still dark & streaked with gray parted in two heavy braids

coiled around her ears waters the flowers

in her nightgown raises an eyebrow as the gate

swings open to let my parents inside

though her voice is full of mirth when she calls home so early? & her daughter

& new son smile back she sets down her watering can

& labors to her feet bemoans her creaking knees seated at the kitchen table over plates

of spiced beans sheep’s cheese & charred

puffs of bread my mother shyly reveals her news her mother’s ululating wakes the cats

& they slink unimpressed into the yard

Morning

my parents set off for bed & i fall into

a dreamless sleep right there

at the kitchen table arms folded to pillow

my racing head & wake to sunlight

like i’ve never seen so bright so saturated

it is almost a pigment almost the color

of marigolds & before i can convince myself i’ve dreamt the whole thing yasmeen’s voice

calls out behind me you know you snore,

right? i turn to see her crisp & uncrumpled

& polished & as i open my mouth to ask

if she’d even slept a movement outside the window catches my eye my grandmother awake

& feeding the birds & in this perfect morning light i see so much of my face in hers i almost think to love it

The Photographs

i wander out of the kitchen to explore the rest

of the quiet house its cool stone floors

its every wall hung heavy with pictures creased with age & soft in gray tones men in neat suits

& cylindrical hats each one jaunty with its tassel men in crisp white tunics a turban winding each head

& most of all photographs crowded with women covered & uncovered some in sundresses

flared around the ankle enormous sunglasses

beehives & bouffants & big curls & coiffed waves some swathed from neck to ankle in tobes their colors lost to time & the gray scale of the camera

all of them my people all of them unknown

i peer into each face & feel for the first time that i belong to other people my face just a collage of all their faces & beyond the gray of the photos i swear i see my exact shade of brown my exact

eyes each exact coil of my hair inherited

from the bodies in these photographs & now my body mine my turn with these features

i turn to find yasmeen beside me gazing into these same photographs hunger in her upturned face

Yasmeen

moved by the ache in yasmeen’s eyes & knowing she must see it echoed in mine i put my hand on her arm i don’t know how else to explain this connection i feel to the girl with my face who longs for what i long for whose smile is my smile & i am brimming with questions where do you live? where did you grow up?

do you know how you got your name? she skips over the first two & gets right to the name it’s honestly so dumb mama just likes the flower that’s it i always wished i’d gotten your name instead one that actually means something & through her eyes my name takes on a new polish like i am finally

holding it up to the light

Room

a song wafts down the stairs & yasmeen & i pull ourselves from the moment to follow it

in a small room painted pool-water blue my parents still in their party clothes are sprawled across their unmade bed

staring up at the lazy turns of the ceiling fan their fingers interlaced laughter & chatter interrupted

only to change the song

to remark i love this one & sing along to a few words the room is cluttered records stacked on every surface books balanced between them some tented open

to mark a page

my mother sits up cross-legged

on the patterned bedspread

do you think it’s too early to call hala? i’m worried about her

& just then as if summoned the telephone

on the bedside table

starts to ring my father answers listening intently answering only in short syllables yes where? okay

puts the receiver back into its cradle as he stands shoving his feet into shoes buttoning his shirt he tosses a simple gray scarf to my mother & says his voice strained let’s go it’s hala they caught her with ashraf last night alone in his car

they’ve been detained the charge is adultery

Hala

we idle in the car outside a large white house

with blue shutters until another car arrives

screeching to a halt & a younger mama fatheya draped in a brightly patterned tobe steps out

partway through what must have been a much longer speech our whole family’s reputation your father will be the laughingstock of the university & how am i ever supposed to show my face again i can’t believe you’d be so stupid what would you have done if i hadn’t happened to have american dollars for the bribe maybe it would have served you right if i’d just left you to rot in that cell with that shameful boy to serve out your sentence i should be hearing some thanks some gratitude some kind of apology khaltu hala sits unmoving on the passenger side

her hair which last night was long & lush thick with kink

& curl now shorn close against her skull

a bruise blooming over her left eye i feel already full of seeing already the full weight of everything

i was never told everything that was kept from me i turn to yasmeen & see my own shock mirrored in her face

Hala

inside the house is large & airy cool stone floors gauzy curtains softening the blazing sun outside mama fatheya retreats to her room her anger searing

& silent except for the eloquent slam of her bedroom door in her own room khaltu hala sits bolt upright her eyes bloodshot & tearless beneath the uneven shear of her hair my mother sits beside her stricken & in the twitch of her hand i see her deciding whether or not she can touch her friend what comfort she can muster in the face of this great rupture moments pass & finally aisha exhales reaches her hand & rests it gently on hala’s shoulder & the stillness is broken

& hala crumples with an unearthly howl

into my mother’s lap & in an echo of the scene i last remember them in my mother gathers her

into her arms & rocks her in that familiar chant i know i know i know

my father hovers in the doorway his posture unsure

& when hala starts to cry he averts his eyes

& does her the kindness of slipping wordlessly from the room my mother catches his eye

in his retreat mouths thank you

Baba

we leave my mother to comfort khaltu hala

while yasmeen & i follow my father through his day i can’t help but ache watching his face moving & full of muscle replacing the frozen one i’ve memorized from the photos we follow him & i learn the long gait of his walk his tall & wiry frame his scent of apples & smoke he stops at a small cafe packed with men drinking tea & shouting & playing backgammon at a table crowded with his friends he is greeted with a cheer ahmed! & i feel tears in my throat at the sound of his name almost lost to time

my mother never says it hardly ever

speaks of him & when she does refers to him only as your father my father ahmed

sprawls into a chair & lights the cigarette he pulls from behind his ear his eyes thick-lashed & alert as he listens to story after story though he keeps mostly quiet he keeps hala’s secret keeps the news

of the baby of me a secret & though he laughs at every joke & though i am barely acquainted with his face its movements & its moods i think i see a tightness in the smile but i don’t know what to name it

Baba

as the table starts to empty my father rearranges his long limbs & orders a glass of tea it arrives with a thick snowfall of sugar at the bottom of the cup he stirs looks into its amber depth & sighs his eyebrows thick & unruly as mine

knit together while he wrestles with some thought that troubles him his forehead furrowing tea cooling

& undrunk a man i recognize from the party joins him apologizes for being late motions to the waiter for another glass of tea & settles comfortably into one-sided chatter with my father

the price of oil the price of bread his wife

aching for a child that will not come some friends thinking of leaving for england others for egypt saudi arabia canada he claps my father jovially on the shoulder why don’t you & the wife come with us?

soon there won’t be any work left here

for anyone & i hear you get used to the cold

my father tries & fails to force a smile his face breaks

& i listen holding my breath ready for the pieces to finally fit into place the story of why we left our country our home & even america takes on a new luster at the thought that baba chose it for us

that we were all meant to go together

to call a new country our home

The Coward

instead i watch my father tell his friend

that he is going to leave my mother

& he is going to leave me though i can barely hear him over the throb of my own sinking heart

the roar of blood in my ears i’m not ready

i’m not i love her i do i just always thought i’d get to be young a little longer maybe see the world i’ve never even left this city this country & now we’re having this child & i don’t think i want that i guess i never thought my life would get so small so soon a child?

with what money? what house? she wants all three of us crowded into that room? all three of us sleeping in her childhood bed? in her childhood home?

& doesn’t care how that makes me look how it makes me feel all of it it’s embarrassing i hoped we were going to get out of this country people have started to go missing & now the soldiers everywhere the raids we could have tried to leave & live a different kind of life & now we’re stuck

his friend studies him blows on his tea & takes a sip so you come with us do you already have a passport?

Mama

as my father plans the details of his escape i drink in one last look at his weak face to replace the picture in my mind in the photographs & my heart

hurts again & again for my mother twirled in the street by the coward she loves off imagining names

for the daughter she was always going to raise alone

& i feel stupid ashamed of the life i spent pining for this stranger this man i never knew who never wanted to know me this ghost i’ve measured my mother against & now i know him & i know he was never mine to miss even if he’d lived mama was always

going to be alone

i mourn her as i’ve come to know her always tired unpinning her scarf after a long day at work to sleep alone

& wake up alone & do all of it over again i turn to yasmeen is this why i was sent here?

to find out he never wanted me? to find out he was never going to be there even if he’d lived? & again

a pang for my mother who i’ve spent my whole life thinking of as half of an incomplete whole as my other parent instead of my only yasmeen still has not spoken so i continue i think i’m supposed to see this to know that mama was always going to be all i had to know that mama was always enough i feel the depth

& shape of my love for my mother in a wash of tears

& i need to see her again even this version who is not yet mine

The Game

together yasmeen & i return to the house to find aisha in the small living room carefully peeling a grapefruit its bright smell filling the air she is draped across a woven bed arranged with others around the room a few mismatched chairs pulled in from other rooms of the house for her gathering of friends

lazy hum of the ceiling fan above flies orbiting like little moons the room smells sweetly of incense

& behind it the sharper scent of new paint a bowl of dates is passed around each one wrinkled & leathery in its caramel sweetness i take in the carved wooden shutters ghostly light almost bursting behind them my grandmother bustles about the younger women

soft flesh of her full upper arms hair oiled & brushed to a shining ripple a fat braid coiled around each ear henna black on her fingers & toes

henna a crimson highlight in her hair reddest

at the neat parting & two long scars burned ceremonially

down each of her cheeks an adornment from a forgotten time

as we approach i hear my mother musing to khaltu hala i love the idea of naming her nima but ahmed loves the name yasmeen & you know it’s my favorite flower it’ll remind me of mama’s garden mama likes it too says a daughter is an apple in her father’s eye

& a flower in her mother’s hair she laughs

& shakes her head & i go warm at the thought of my name as mama’s first choice

yasmeen is my father’s daughter the father

i never needed

khaltu amal though not the one being spoken to

pipes up yasmeen is the prettier name, aisha, no question

& khaltu hala rolls her eyes her dislike for amal flavoring the air around them & if only to be contrary she shoots back there’s a guava tree in the garden too

& i don’t hear you trying to name the baby jawaafa or after the doum tree or the lemon tree i think nima has more character she stares at amal

as she pronounces this last word

someone produces a deck of cards why don’t we make

a game of it? & with a smirk amal takes the cards

& starts to shuffle if i win a round, that’s one point for yasmeen you win a round & it’s a point for nima my mother is quiet at first wary then her face clears & she claps her hands it’ll be fun! best three out of five? but just for fun, okay?

i turn to catch yasmeen’s eye but her face is stricken i reach to touch her shoulder & she shrugs my hand away

& i am stung by her small rejection as the game begins they’re playing concan with speed & concentration i’ve never seen not the clumsy & laughing way haitham & i play it with mama fatheya who cheats shamelessly gets up in the middle of the game to make tea

& loses half her cards in the couch cushions amal’s jaw is set hala’s brow is furrowed

they play entirely in silence & with a grin amal sets down a winning hand & hala makes a frustrated noise from the back of her throat as amal caws

one point for yasmeen! & i feel that old hum in my body yasmeen gasps & i follow her pointing hand

down to my feet except my feet are not there

& fear slices through me but before i can do anything hala is shuffling the cards again

& the hum leaves my body my feet flicker back into place as they begin the next round which hala wins

in just a few brutal moves slaps down her cards

& calls out nima! & yasmeen’s arm is instantly gone dread settles onto her face until the cards are shuffled again

& her arm blurs back into sight

the next round is longer tense & finally

with a grunt hala wins again yasmeen’s body

dissolving from the waist down fearful tears pooling in her eyes & remaining there even as the cards are once again shuffled & her legs are restored when amal wins the fourth round & i feel the ominous hum in my body again i cast about in panic for a way to stop the game i reach for the cards but have no hands to grab them with & in a final surge of desperation i aim my foot at the tea set

arranged beside the group mint leaves steeping

in a beautiful ornate ceramic pot & kick the entire tray over onto the cards boiling tea splashing into khaltu amal’s lap her howl of pain the game forgotten

as the women scramble to their feet

what have you done? yasmeen hisses jogging to catch up as i stride toward the gate

i feel unsettled & afraid something nagging at me that i can’t name & i need somewhere quiet to think

Quiet

yasmeen pulls me by the hand before the sob escapes my throat & leads me outside into the blazing day

& for a moment the noise washes over me

muffling the feeling

cars clatter by in a honking of horns & cough of exhaust sharing the street with bleating animals pedestrians crossing without looking to either side escaping narrowly with their lives children crowd the car windows hawking bags of peanuts sweet ropes of creamy white jasmine

& an old man whizzes past on a bicycle

barely missing yasmeen

who once again tugs at my hand if we don’t move out of the way we’re going to get flattened

& it’s true that everything feels too loud too bright i just need a quiet place to think

i call to yasmeen over the commotion i need a quiet place to think & yasmeen walks us in the direction of the river to the skeleton of an unfinished building

a monster of gray concrete

its windows without glass like sockets missing their eyes on a raised bit of land flush against the river its brilliant blue wait i hesitate i didn’t mean, like,

abandoned-building quiet

don’t be stupid she replies & she’s pulling me along again into the building up one crumbling set of stairs yasmeen, where are we going? i should probably tell you now that i don’t love heights as we climb another set of stairs hold on, would you stop for a second? shouldn’t we talk about what just happened? without turning she calls back here’s this whole country we never got to see don’t you want to see everything? i feel the sweat prickling in my armpits i can already see everything through this window why don’t we just stop here?

& she shakes her head the roof i want to see everything

A Country

i stumble coughing behind her onto the roof & before i can slow my breath i feel it catch again in my throat as i look out & see it the whole city the desert just beyond it our whole country panoramic before us all the noise softened by distance

i can just make out the sounds coming from a nearby minaret a full-throated call to prayer below us the world is rendered in every variation of brown sudden shocks of other colors bougainvillea planted everywhere glossy green of palm leaves & as the sun begins to set the colors seem almost painted almost liquid true pink true orange gold its magentas & oranges like fruit

i long to touch it to my lips

yasmeen & i are silent surrounded by what could have been ours the street below wafting its perfumes of car exhaust of corn & peanuts roasting

that ever-shifting smell of smoke

& for a moment i can forget my fear the memory of my vanishing body how easily my name

could have been taken

instead i take in the colors the smells blue & gold

& unnamed sepia tones around us streets bustling with my people with my family yasmeen beside me

squeezing my hand

Yasmeen

as the panic from the game leaves my body

i remember with a jolt why we’d gone back to the house yasmeen, we have to tell mama that baba is leaving her you don’t understand what it’s like her whole life is like a shrine to him she has to know what he was really like i turn to her wait, but in your life they’re together, right? what’s he like? what changed?

her face takes on a hunted look & she will not meet my eyes i feel desperate why aren’t you answering me? yes or no?

are they together? we need a plan

maybe i could write her a letter

or whisper to her in her sleep or & yasmeen shakes her head we’re not really here, remember? i already told you, they can’t see us they can’t hear us either

& i do remember yasmeen telling me at the party we’re only visitors, you understand? we’re not part of this part of time & i want to know why she knows all this & i don’t yasmeen, what are you not telling me?

how do you know all this? & how come i don’t?

& the hunted look returns to her face i’ve caught her in some kind of lie & i feel betrayed by everyone my father making plans to make a life without me & now this girl i’ve grown secretly to think of as my sister this girl who brought me here i remember her leading me

through that day that already feels so far away to the diner to the airport into the scene

of the photograph into this world

yasmeen, what are we doing here?

Half Possible

yasmeen sets her mouth in a hard line & just as i think she isn’t going to tell me she begins there is only meant to be one of us & something tightens in my stomach what do you mean? she takes a step closer you just saw it for yourself there is no stupid parallel universe our mother has one daughter & that daughter has one name my stomach begins to twist itself into a knot as i think back on her flimsy answers to every question

about her life now so obviously a lie always obviously a lie that i was too hungry for her sisterhood to notice distracted by the ways she’d turn the questioning on me

& make me feel interesting intoxicating me

with her unflinching attention but now

her words come flooding fueled by a new anger

rippling beneath the surface twisting our features in her face we’re here because she’s going to decide what to name the child it could have been any name but the way the history worked out the choices come down

to nima & yasmeen you or me if she chooses yours you go back to everything & if she chooses mine your life becomes mine & you become like me

& she takes another step toward me i start to step back

& the wind circles us carrying with it the smell of the river the water just below just behind me

yasmeen, what do you mean like you? what are you?

& something warps in her face

the ghost trapped between worlds the other fading possibility that’s why you’d go transparent every time you wished yourself away you were making me more real here i feel a prickle of fear crawl up my neck

right now you’re only half possible & so am i whoever’s name she chooses gets to be her daughter

& she’s too close to me now i look back nervous yasmeen, this is really high can we talk about this downstairs?

& she looks like she is deciding something

a determined look settles onto her face our face

& she’s lunging toward me

pushing me off the roof’s concrete & into open air & as i fall i scramble to grab her shirt pulling her behind me

A Single Possibility

we land with a hard smack into the sharp cold

of the river surrounded by floating trash submerged in dirty water i struggle to keep my head

above the surface i kick my legs & pull my arms my body heavy with soaked fabric yasmeen’s grip tight on a handful of my hair

the waves which looked so gentle from the shore splash up into my face fill my mouth & sting my burning eyes they pull me to the surface

as yasmeen submerges me again desperation

& panic mingling in her face as she forces me back under the water

& i am so afraid i am almost calm the thoughts unspooling slowly before me i understand her plan to make herself the only option eliminate the other

& even when she saved me from that man at the hotel it wasn’t to save me it was to bring me here

she brought me here to leave me here

to return to my life as herself

she isn’t my sister we are opposite ends of a single possibility an only child forming in

our mother’s belly waiting to be shaped by a name once & for all whoever is chosen lives & whoever

is not is gone forever resolved by history

& so yasmeen of course yasmeen is trying to kill me i scrabble at her hands now clamped around

my neck a knot gnarled & thick & i feel panic fluttering the blood away from my fumbling fingers i claw at her treading water until i can no longer feel my legs i cannot sink i cannot die & leave my life to her i cannot leave my loves to her my mother haitham my country frozen in photographs my tin box of longing the songs i love the dance my cassettes all mine not hers mine

& in a final surge i kick my legs & as i pull myself free from her grasp her foot catches on something under the surface & she is pulled backward into the depths

Yasmeen

i watch her face disappear under the water & it is my face etched with the same panic i feel coursing through me

& it feels like i am watching myself drown & i know i should just let her go let myself become the only possibility eliminate the other

but i can’t just leave her there leave the body that is my body to die

& everything feels slowed down the moment broken into a string of smaller moments a tire floats past

& i lunge for it with one hand my other hand feeling around then reaching under the water

for her long braid of hair

i pull hard & her head breaches the surface coughing arms flailing grabbing first at me

& then understanding that i am trying to help reaching desperately for the tire my foot

she yells hoarsely it’s caught & through the murk of water i can just make out the net

snarled around her ankle

& of course the only way to free her is to suck in a breath

& go underwater try to keep my eyes open

against the sting & fumble at the net worked into a knot with no give & through it all trust that she will not try again to push me under

right as my lungs are ready to release their scream for air i work the knot loose & the net falls away

into the dark depth of the water i come back up

& gasp hungry breaths each gulp of air dragging sharp nails along my throat

yasmeen grabs my hand & helps me throw my arms over the tire & together we kick our way back to shore

Yesterday & Tomorrow

we stumble along the riverbank

yasmeen limping beside me

i turn to her & fill with unexpected pity

at the sight of her struggling forward

shrunken by fear & somehow smaller than me

& somehow no longer a threat

no longer some ominous spirit

no longer any better than me any taller

her breath is ragged & i stop to let her rest before we walk back along the road

vaguely pointed toward our parents’ house

everything a little quieter in the approaching dusk our dripping hair & clothes making us shiver in the cooling air

i sneak glances at yasmeen hunched & unsure silent in the awkward aftermath of our struggle

& i feel a surge of resentment

i curse my stupid sense of responsibility

to this spirit-girl who still probably wants me dead who probably would not have saved me

if our places in the water

had been switched

who pushed me into it in the first place

she is quiet biting her lip

& seems to be squirming inside her skin

as i watch her before the anger dawns on her face to match mine you don’t know what it’s like for me living nowhere existing nowhere

stuck watching between worlds

watching you waste all the life you’ve been given all that love you’ve been given

you have no idea what you have

& have the nerve to wish it all away to wish yourself away you’re the one that summoned me, stupid

all this talk of wishing you’d been born me

instead of yourself you called me over invited me to take the life & make it mine since you clearly have no use for it

moaning & stuck obsessing over the past

some man that never wanted us to begin with since you love yesterday so much

why not just stay here

watching history happen like some dumb movie that doesn’t need your participation

& let me do the work of actually living

of actually filling that life you’ve barely touched she’s right & i hate her for it

& the shame prickles at my warmed skin

as i think back to each time i wished myself gone wished myself another life

leaving my mother & haitham

behind in the old one

twilight settles around us the darkening sky

simultaneously brilliant & deep

the moon a perfect orb suspended in the nameless color

& for a moment i look up in wonder

wishing yasmeen would leave me alone

to see the country that was kept from me

go away i hiss at her & she rolls her eyes i wish i could but in case you haven’t noticed, stupid, i have to go wherever you do

our fates are bound until we figure this out i promise i’m not hanging around because i like you

& the frustration builds

until i want to tear out my own hair

stop calling me stupid

Dusk

the sun has finished setting as we approach

the gate to the house to find my mother slipping out alone & hurrying down the twilit street

sandals slapping against her heels

yasmeen & i jog to catch up to her just as the gate to hala’s house opens to let her in & we’re barely inside before the gate clangs shut

& hala is leading us around the side of the darkened house we turn in to a back courtyard & the darkness is forgotten in a cluster of chairs arranged under a string of lanterns a buzz of laughter & talk & clinking glasses of mint tea as aisha is whispering you didn’t have to host tonight with everything that’s happened hala cuts her off i already promised & it was too late to cancel it’s fine my mother holding court with her friends

laughing & teasing & talking more than i’ve ever heard her i understand why people want to leave but i couldn’t live anywhere else away from everything i love it here

& i know things can get better but who will fix it if we all leave?

khaltu hala laughs & calls her a nationalist & my mother not yet my mother just aisha throws her head back to join the laughter

then points up into the night sky why go anywhere else when we have all the stars & another friend calls out here comes the romance aisha’s face is dreamy as she curls both feet up into the chair sandals forgotten in the dust imagine growing up here in our parents’ time she muses when the country was just born the elegant way our mothers would dress

all the independence songs & all that promise hala pulls the cigarette from her mouth & laughs again

my nostalgia monster here i miss haitham with a pang i don’t mean to interrupt the poem

but it’s time to put some music on & a song rings out into the night & aisha unfolds

her legs to dance

The Lesson

the song begins crackling through the speakers

& i love this one i sing it to myself & watch aisha & amal & all the women i’ll never know swaying & clapping & tossing their hair around to the song & when it’s done something percussive

& powerful takes its place one of the traditional dances i love & as my mother steps into

the center of the circle i feel myself rising

to echo her she strikes her foot against

the dust & i mirror her movements i bring

my hands to my face in the coy motion she taught me

& swing my hair from side to side i watch her in her element & feel myself in mine something in me clicks & stays put & i feel suddenly fluent in my body in the knowledge that my waist will move as i tell it to that my back will arch in the exact shapes of hers & as i twist my head in time to the song’s final notes i catch yasmeen sitting up alert

watching me in awe how do you do that?

i keep moving as i answer what do you mean?

i don’t know, i don’t know what to call it it’s like you were the music like your body was the song how do you do that?

& it begins to dawn on me slowly at first then all at once yasmeen, have you never

danced? & she cuts her eyes at me

don’t talk to me like you’re sorry for me

in case you weren’t following what i’ve been trying to tell you i haven’t exactly had a body before this stupid little adventure so no i guess i’ve never danced before & wait no what are you doing & i am pulling her up to join me her protests slowing as i arrange

her limbs as i turn to face her okay, first with your right & at first her movements are jerky uncomfortable but by the fourth song her eyes are closed & the music has settled itself into her muscles & the movements have begun to take mirroring mine & a few feet away

my mother puts her body through the exact motions the three of us in parallel

An Alternate Possibility

we sit in a new silence shy in the aftermath

of our brittle sisterhood watching the ebb & flow of the party & eventually i’ve had my fill

even the thrill of the old songs i love not enough to silence my racing head

i turn to yasmeen sprawled out in the dust beside me catching her breath i nudge her with my foot & she scowls sits up ready for another fight until i raise

my hands in surrender

i just wanted to ask you something i protest

& she flops back onto the ground & in her silence i press on i don’t really understand your whole thing are you a jinni or, like, some kind of spirit or something?

where were you before i started, i guess, summoning you?

were you trying to steal some other life? she doesn’t answer

& instead shoots back a question of her own

why did you summon me? you have this whole big beautiful life

& you’re just wasting it, wishing yourself out of it.

how could you not want it? & i cast about for the words to explain it’s not that i don’t want the life i love my mom & haitham & khaltu hala & mama fatheya

& there’s a lot of stuff that makes me happy a lot of the time

it’s me i wish were different i love them & i guess part of loving them is wishing i were better, a better version of myself which i always imagined as you but i guess you’re not actually you? i still need you to explain it to me. did i, like, invent you?

moments pass & she does not speak i lean forward to ask again & she begins

i already told you i am an alternate possibility trying to become a person i don’t even know how to explain it to you it’s like i’m asleep for years at a time until a living possibility starts to fade

& i see an opening the memory fades before i wake back up i basically don’t exist without some sort of animating mission without the pursuit of being born that’s all i want, you know to be born

it’s not even your life i want i just want a life any life i want a person to become to wake me up for good i want a body that is mine actually mine a body i feel fluent in

do you actually understand how boring it is

waiting to be made possible?

A Life

yasmeen continues all this stuff you love the music, the dancing, your mom, haitham i don’t have any of it i don’t have anything like it & it’s all i want i want a favorite song & i want to know if a guava tastes the way it looks i want to shine with sweat

& change colors in the sun i want to watch television

& memorize whole stretches of movie dialogue like you

& haitham do i want the feeling of sitting in hot water

& to be afraid of heights or dogs or the dark i want to ride the bus & give someone directions i want to shell pistachios & bite my nails & get the hiccups from laughing too hard i want to shield my eyes from the sun i want eyes that are mine to shield & skin that is mine i want goose bumps & armpits that go damp & i want arms that are too hairy or feet that are too large or anything i’ll take anything any version of a life

& with a gasp she sits up my features blurring out of her face i don’t think i was supposed to tell you

any of that

Yasmeen

her features flicker in & out like her whole body is shimmering with static hair switching from color to color different noses & eyes & mouths arranging themselves for a moment before blurring out again she shakes her head hard & the face settles for a moment one gray eye & one brown mouth full of large horsey teeth this is bad she whispers

a new nose shimmering in to replace the last one

Yasmeen

she begins stumbling around the party her every warping feature pleading wordlessly to me for help i scramble to my feet & hurry toward her just as she crashes into a small table holding half-drunk glasses of hibiscus juice

before careening toward another table holding

the cassette player & i watch in horror as she trips over the cord knocking the source

of all the party’s music to the ground & in the new silence the guests have stopped dancing watching

as something they cannot see destroys the party around them yasmeen’s face is shining with tears as the body continues to knock itself against a tree like it is trying to rid itself of her & before i can reach her mama fatheya emerges from the house

a clay incense burner in her hand billowing dense coils of smoke reciting something i don’t understand

i watch in horror as the smoke wraps itself around yasmeen her scream an otherworldly sound & when the smoke clears she is gone

Spirits

mama fatheya lifts an upended chair back into its place

& heaves herself into it as the younger women clamor around her she waves away the proffered glass of water no reason to worry, no reason to be afraid you all should know what happens when you play loud music at twilight when the veil between the spirit world & ours is thinnest you’ll call them to our side some of them are harmless but i think this one was particularly nasty

& something in me bristles at hearing

yasmeen described like that like some sort of monster hearing someone who doesn’t even know her just decide what she is what she’s like & with a jolt of panic i realize i don’t know where she’s gone if she’s ever coming back she isn’t evil she didn’t choose

to be this way

i am haunted by the memory of her scream the sound of someone in terrible pain a pain she didn’t deserve when all she ever tried to do was live

Alone

in a corner of the garden i sink

into the soft dirt my back against the trunk

of a tree wafting gentle notes of jasmine

my heart’s painful percussion showing no signs

at first of slowing until it finally does

& i am left in silence with yasmeen’s absence i thought i’d be relieved i no longer

have to fight for my name but i’m still here

with no idea how to leave how to go home

i’m left with no one else to talk to no one

who can see me & she was taken so quickly

i’ve lost her & the loss takes its place

among my other losses & breaks my heart

in new ways i could have helped her

i’ve always been the one with everything

i’ve always been the one with something to give

Alone

time passes & the ruined party continues to disperse a few stray guests help rearrange the fallen furniture

& gingerly gather the scattered shards of glass i don’t know where to go i don’t know what comes next

& the weariness i’ve staved off for what feels like days finally soaks into my body i want to go home

to my mother my life my world where there is room for me my world where i have a name where i am not alone

& in the midst of this thought something is pulling me to my feet hands that feel solid as my own

but as i look around wildly

i see no one there

Yasmeen

nima, it’s me & the voice is yasmeen’s we don’t have a lot of time but i’m here to help i don’t have much longer but i want to get you home & i hear the tears in her voice i tighten my hold on the hand in mine yasmeen, wait there has to be some way & she cuts me off i don’t want it anymore your life i don’t want to take it from you it’s yours

& i can’t help but feel stupid for talking tearfully into thin air but i continue yasmeen, there has to be some way i can help

& her voice takes on a stubborn knot i can almost picture the way she shakes her head the new expressions she would make of our familiar features nima, listen to me.

i don’t know why i’m like this. i don’t know what it all means.

i don’t know how to change anything & i don’t know anything that matters except that i can help you get home.

i’ve never wanted to do anything good before, really, but you’re good & you’re kind & you’re so full of love my face gets hot as she says this shut up & let me finish, i mean it even after i literally tried to kill you, you didn’t

think twice about saving me you learned this huge thing about your dad & instead of knocking a hookah over onto his stupid lap, your first thought was about helping your mother

& i don’t know, it taught me something so anyway could you just shut up for a second & let me do my good thing?

& as she mentions baba & the cafe the idea slams into me yasmeen, what if we find you a life you don’t have to steal?

she’s silent for a second & i take this as permission to keep going & hope it doesn’t instead mean she’s gone again yasmeen? i’m here.

what do you mean a life i don’t have to steal?

it might not work but we have to try. but is there a way for you to be less invisible? i can’t concentrate when i keep thinking you’ve disappeared & as she flickers back into my sight her face is once again my face

but rendered in gray scale like an old photograph

The Plan

yasmeen stumbles along beside me

blurred again around the edges

her fingers going increasingly transparent

where are we going? & how do you know this is going to work? & also while we’re here could you not say things like ‘a life you don’t have to steal’ like you think you’re better than me? i look over warily but she’s smiling playful & i join her i’m not saying i’m better but look you’re the one who called me ‘full of love’ & i can tell i’ve embarrassed her i steel myself for another fight until just in time the cafe looms again

before us not yet emptied for the night

The Cafe

we slip inside unseen & weave between

the tables yasmeen opens her mouth

to protest & i shush her striding back

toward the table where my father sits

with his friend with a pang i look away

from him planning his departure & i turn

to yasmeen remember what his friend was saying before they started planning the big escape?

he & his wife want a child & the child won’t appear is that enough possibility for you?

the plan dawns solidly on her restored face reanimating with its new mission the man rises from the table

& drains his glass shrugs into his jacket

& claps my father on the shoulder

before slouching toward the door

i pull yasmeen into a hug tears pricking in my throat go with him go get born go get a body

& before she can speak

i’ve pushed her out the door behind him

Yasmeen

i stride triumphant back toward

my grandmother’s house glowing with

the victory of hopefully saving yasmeen

no longer my sister never actually

my sister maybe never to be seen

again but alive somewhere alongside me

our paths untangled & moving in tranquil parallel i miss my strange almost-friend her strange

& supernatural company but i hope i’ve saved her

& now i need to find a way to make my name my own

Leaving

i pass through the gate into the garden

& feel my stomach knotting tightly when

i realize i never asked yasmeen how

to warn my mother & before i have

a plan as if summoned my mother emerges

my father close behind her his face

tight & expressionless as she reaches for his hand & says i missed you today i hope the cinema will cheer you up

& for lack of a better idea

when she passes me i lean in & hiss into

her ear don’t trust him he’s going to leave you & step back as she startles

& gazes frantically about to find of course nothing & she climbs looking troubled

into the car

Breaking

i watch them argue through the window

her face shining with tears his knuckles

sharp as he grips the steering wheel

he does not look at her & as she motions

to her stomach with a plea he strikes

the dashboard says something curt

& cutting & i watch her mouth open

then close she lowers her head

& the tears pour silently into her lap

The Officers

before she can unlock the door to exit

a white pickup truck piled high

with young men in fatigues screeches

to a halt beside my parents’ little car

five officers debark & crowd toward

the window on my father’s side one knocks

maliciously on the glass & leans down

grinning when the window lowers & they all

see the beautiful girl in the passenger seat

who is this woman? they call into the window

& my father collecting himself replies

she is my wife no way, so young another officer mocks we’d like to ask her a few

questions licking his chops like a wolf my father begins to ease the window back up

until one of the men blocks it with the butt

of his rifle snarls we want to ask her

some questions then give us the girl & you can leave & it all goes still & silent as i remember my mother’s story they shot him

& i lift a large rock from the others strewn on the road

& aim it hard into the knot of men they scatter

& peer into the dark the car has not moved so i heave

another rock & narrowly miss an officer’s face they draw their guns & begin to shoot i seize up in fear until i see every bullet passing through me like air

& lodging into tree trunks parked cars clanging into the tin gates of houses & in the clamor my father slams his foot down on the car’s accelerator & speeds off the rifle stuck & rattling against the window its officer jogging along with it until he loses his footing

& falls into the street & my father does not die

Leaving

when the road is emptied & quiet the car

inches slowly back toward the house my father

helping my shaking mother through the gate & into the courtyard where they cling to each other

in a long embrace until her sobs have quieted

stay she pleads or let me come with you what happened to us? we love each other

you love me stay & he will not look at her instead just shakes his head & leaves her

frozen in the courtyard as he strides into the house

Gone

i stand rooted with my mother in the courtyard

as she is racked by new tears & i also

can’t believe that he’s gone i thought i’d helped i thought i’d fixed it our broken history full

of loss full of people & places once loved

& now simply gone i thought i’d stolen one back to our side reclaimed one of our losses

from history’s sharper teeth from time’s gaping mouth but i was wrong he was never meant to be ours my father he was always meant to be gone it was always bigger than anything my small tampering could change

& my mother & i were always meant to belong to no one but each other

Left Behind

my mother is crumpled in her bed the pillow

on my father’s side undisturbed & smooth

his few clothes & books & records tossed into the little car & gone no one to rub her back

& wipe her face as she convulsed all night with grief hours pass & the afternoon fills the room with slants of yellow light a small knock goes unanswered

then another & finally khaltu hala slips quietly into the room sits sad & quiet at the edge of the bed considering the hurt radiating from my mother’s curled form they stay in silence for a long moment hala

places a palm on my mother’s searing forehead & tears start pouring down the sides of my mother’s upturned face pooling in her ears down her neck

by sunset khaltu hala convinces her to sit up

& sip water feeds her pieces of cut fruit & listens humming in sympathy as my mother tells her tale

& by the end her face is creased with worry as my mother says quietly i can’t raise his child alone all she will do is remind me of him i have to give her away

& my stomach aches into a knot & i wonder if i’ve made everything worse

twilight darkens the room & hala rises to leave mama is sending me away to america

i have to go home to pack & listen my mother raises her eyes to hala without speaking aisha, come with me i won’t leave you here alone & i’ll be so alone without you let’s go & start over away from everything that hurt us

The Baby

when hala is gone i take her seat at my mother’s bedside

& pass hands she cannot see across her face

over her hair

she stiffens looks wildly around the room cries out in the wrong direction who is that? who’s there?

it feels wrong to scare her but i need to change her mind mama i plead it’s me your daughter it’s me

& i call to her my name i’m your daughter i need you we have a whole life together together you’re all i need not him you’re all i need please

& my mother slows her frantic search around the room

& looks awed down at her stomach touches it reverently & in the quiet wraps her voice around my name

nima repeats it like a prayer nima nima my saving grace & as she says my name a chasm opens where once lay my father’s abandoned pillow colors swirling as if in water before settling

into a scene i peer into the opening & see the bathroom

of our apartment water running into the tub about to overflow i look back at my mother hurt but surviving cradling her belly crooning my name to herself nima

The Portal

the gap in this world is pulling me toward it

like a current inside it the bathtub has begun

to overflow glistening onto the tile

& i don’t know if i’m ready to leave i have so much left to do to see i have to study

my grandmother’s long-lost face learn the lives of all those i didn’t know before their great losses the men in the band i want to know what happens to haitham’s father if he is ever seen again

i want to know why they all left & undo all the damage undo the wars the hunger the kidnapped women

& jailed men returning months later looking hollowed out hair shorn close against their skulls i want to fix it all i want to help in this world where i don’t feel so helpless so hunted where i don’t have to watch haitham’s broken face without knowing if he’s still alive

behind it where my arabic flows easily

from my throat & the athan rings out five times a day from the minarets in a voice husky with magic i want to eat guava & skip stones into the stinking river i want to watch my mother’s youth her dancer’s

walk her life vibrant with friendship & parties styled like a film star in her yellow dress not tired not at work & instead laughing dancing

clapping along to all the songs she loves her unbroken

country pulled warm around her & i fight hard against the portal’s pull i reach to grip a bedpost

& my hands move clean through it like it’s water i grab at everything around me as it dissolves back to history my feet now submerged to the ankle

in the chasm i make one final

reach for my mother’s frozen arm & it blurs away the portal moving up my legs to swallow me whole

The Portal

the portal is uncomfortably hot pulls me by its current toward the other side & all around me

swirling like autumn leaves are hundreds

of photographs i’ve never seen

arriving to paper the walls of the tunnel

in one my mother pregnant at the airport

smiling hugely into her new life in another

my mother cradles a tiny baby in awe

one taken the winter when i first befriended haitham when my mother bought me a new coat & shivered every day in her layers of sweaters my mother

folding me tiny paper boats to float in the bathtub my mother demonstrating a movement to a group of girls twisting to mirror it my mother smiling broadly beneath a sign that reads traditional dance classes by aisha my mother in a newspaper clipping whose caption reads founder of local dance troupe banat al-nima describes dance as her connection to a lost home & in every photo my hand is clutched tight in hers or around her leg or tugging on her hem in every photo we are together not a single one where either one of us is alone & in a rush of warm air the portal deposits me feetfirst & fully clothed into the bathtub splashing water over the sides my mother knocking frantically outside the bathroom door

Home

i call to her & i hear her voice weighted with relief a sob catching in her throat you’re here you’re here i thought i’d lost you where have you been all day?

& i heave myself out of the tub to unlock the door dripping a trail of bathwater behind me

my mother pulls me to her my wet clothes soaking hers her tears spilling into my hair & the words pour out in both languages from my mouth i’m sorry i’m sorry you’re all the family i need you’re all the parent i need i’m sorry thank you for making us this life from nothing thank you for choosing me i’m sorry i choose you too i choose you you’re all i need you’re all of it

& we stand like this clasped & sobbing

until i start to shiver in my still-drenched clothes she wraps me in a towel sends me

to my room to change

The Photographs

& in the apartment outside all but one of the photographs of my father have disappeared replaced instead by the ones from the portal the one with me as a newborn

framed in the living room

the one at the airport taped to the mirror

of my mother’s dresser

in the one on the coffee table we perch

by a bathtub crowded with paper boats

& in the absence of his face i finally pay attention to the others all over the apartment

that have been there all along

my grandmother my mother surrounded

by friends & smiling enormously into the camera my mother grinning beside khaltu hala

my mother holding a bouquet of flowers surrounded by girls in dancers’ clothes

what is newest is a poster advertising

the banat al-nima dance school & on it a photograph of my mother midstep & across from her

in the exact movement is me

& when i pull my tin box from beneath the bed the one photograph remains my parents at the party

& with it is a new one of my mother here in america in full color at some recent party yellow dress swirling bright around her head thrown back

her mouth open midlaugh or midlyric

arms stretched above her head

as if in victory aisha bright & full of living

The Kitchen

i change into dry clothes & emerge from my room to see my mother in the kitchen cutting fruit a pot of lentils rioting on the stove i watch her quietly drinking her in she looks younger less tired

less stooped around the shoulders undefeated

she turns her head & catches me looking smiles holds up some tupperware & nods toward the pot of food i thought we’d take this to the hospital

& have dinner with haitham’s family & the world i left behind begins steadily to fade as i rejoin mine

& in my world haitham is in the hospital his body broken struggling to stay alive & i fight the urge to dissolve into tears into hopelessness over the fact

that i’ve changed nothing that matters i clench my jaw to keep back the sobs & join mama in the kitchen to scrape the burnt bits of rice at the bottom of the pot haitham’s favorite into a separate container

for when he wakes up i reply to her glance

Haitham

when i met you we were so small so miraculously unhurt unawoken by the dreams that make our mothers scream out at night the whole world our private joke the whole world a playground for our twinned brains your perfect heart its daily forgiveness of my uglier one when i met you i had a father or at least i had the dream of one to lull me every night to sleep photos to study to imagine separated only by the spirit world’s veil a father who would choose me & would have if he could have stayed but now i have so much more i have so much to tell you wake up i have so much left to say

when i met you we were such children believing neither of us could ever die won’t you wake up wake up

& believe it with me again

Haitham

i approach haitham’s bedside my mother busying herself unpacking the dishes his mother & grandmother each in her own gnarled sleep in a chair

i don’t know if i’m allowed to touch him if it will hurt him they’ve taken the tube from his mouth & his lip has healed a little though his eyes stay closed

& solemn & i can’t tell if he’s breathing i lean in to listen for a heartbeat for a breath

& his voice bubbles out unchanged

excuse me, a little personal space & i feel like my heart just shot up to my throat

i straighten to look at him & his eyes

are wide open wide awake his grin

threatening to split his lip back open i squeal

& laugh & burst into tears

i’m sorry i wail & he cocks an eyebrow winces a little & straightens his face sorry for what?

& when i reach for the memory of our argument it’s like trying to remember a dream like trying to carry water in a cupped palm all of it trickling slowly away i…

you… i… i can’t really remember i blurt out sheepish he looks at me

mock-serious did you also get kicked in the head?

then laughs his enormous laugh

Haitham

when i met you i was already angry so angry about everything i thought had been taken from me everything i thought i did not have so busy looking at my one empty hand i almost missed everything filling the other

i think i spent a long time hating myself thinking of myself as not enough thinking i was loving everyone i loved by wishing a better version of myself into their lives one more deserving more graceful i think i could have been a better friend to you instead of locking myself away inside my head

& invented memories locking myself away inside the old photographs the old songs

& letting my whole life happen without me is what i want to say but all i can manage is

i’m here now & i want to do better

& i’m sorry & i missed you & thank you, thank you for waking up & haitham looks for a moment like he is about to make a joke

& then miraculously doesn’t

instead says simply nima, you’re my best friend but of course can’t help himself but didn’t the doctor tell you not to make me cry

& i am already smothering him in a hug pressing tighter & marveling at him so solid

& alive until i hear his muffled ouch

Home Is Not a Country

i’ve returned to my life only to find that things aren’t all that different i go to school & wave at haitham in the hallways & eat my lunch alone in the company of others eating their lunches alone though this morning while i make yet another

tragic sandwich my mother appears her face

determined & sets something neatly wrapped

in paper towels on the counter before me

nima, please, enough with those awful sandwiches will you take this instead? it’s cheese like i know you like, but it’s feta & i heated some pita & there’s fuul & tomato in there too i can’t keep imagining my daughter at school eating that plastic here she casts a grim look at the neon slices of cheese

in their individual sleeves & i feel a dread i hadn’t realized i was carrying dissolve as i imagine myself eating a lunch that doesn’t make me want

to cry

The Singer

at the bigala my mother haggles with the shopkeeper seriously? for just the one leg of lamb? can you prove to me it descended from isaac? while i browse along the shelf of tapes selecting two & bringing them to the counter the shopkeeper barely glancing at me before turning probably to shout back at my mother but does a double take he lifts one of the cassettes to the light oh, i love this one & sings dreamily to himself in a voice like honey

& i recognize behind the scowling face i’ve always known that singer from the party the looseness of his limbs his freedom but it already feels like something from a dream or an old film i watched once then lost to time but still i say you have a beautiful voice, uncle

& my mother twinkles up at him you didn’t know?

back home he was something of a celebrity

& the laugh softens his grizzled face as he wraps the lamb up for my mother & hands it to her consider it a gift

for the dancer & her daughter

Nima

& now on saturdays my mother teaches her class rows of girls in all our people’s sepia shades

arranged eagerly before her in our living room

the furniture pushed back into the corners

as they learn all the shapes & the songs

& the particular language of the drum

i love to watch her teach & love it more when she calls me out of my room to demonstrate one thing

or another watch nima she’ll say

& i’ll feel the eyes warming my skin

as i reach for the song & wrap it tightly around me

& my body responds in its language

Yasmeen

we’re back in arabic class haitham’s stitches healed over

& his cast covered in scribbled signatures

stickers & cartoons & though it’s his left when the teacher brings over a quiz

& tries to hand haitham the sheet he lifts his cast

& announces this is my writing hand, sir

& is excused from all work until it heals

when the teacher turns i shove him in his

good shoulder liar you’re never going to learn any arabic & he looks over face contorted in pretend heartbreak my arabic is perfect listen we collapse into laughter

before he finishes the lyric

& hear a third voice laughing with us a girl sitting behind haitham leans forward over her desk

her round face is full of mischief eyes big & dark

& already in on the joke

her lips stretch into a smile full of large

white teeth gilded in multicolored braces

she smells faintly of sesame & flowers

something about her distantly familiar

though i can’t place it

& as if to answer the question i haven’t yet asked she holds out her hand acting out a serious

handshake hi, i’m new, my name’s jazzy

& haitham raises an eyebrow

that’s not arabic, is it? come on, what’s your passport name? & she makes a face everyone calls me jazzy or jazz

except my mom when she’s mad then

she calls me yasmeen

Jazz

sits between me & mama fatheya on the couch

both of them engrossed in the same cooking show

while haitham sits by our feet trying & failing to work a series of objects under his cast

to scratch his arm during commercials

jazzy rouses mama fatheya with her perfect arabic

& just as i feel a strange & ancient jealousy unfurling in my chest

she turns to me & grins i hear you’re some kind of nostalgia monster so i come bearing an offering

& from the pocket of her jacket she extracts an unlabeled tape

did you know our arabic teacher was in a band back home with a bunch of the uncles from the building? & would you believe they were actually good? there’s an amazing cover of this sayed khalifa song on here that i love

& we are instantly kindred she unfolds

her long legs from the couch & reaches

for my hand & as i grab it i feel a familiar pressure in her grasp

that familiar scent floral & earthy

& echoing with something

i know i’ve known but have forgotten

& i blurt out not to be weird but i feel like i know you from somewhere

haitham looks up from attending to his arm

& calls out all these love songs are making you such a romantic to which yasmeen laughing replies shut up can’t you see we’re having a moment, stupid?

& for a second her voice wrapped around the word is almost a memory almost a song from another life

& when i reach for it it is gone

as the old cassette player

crackles out the song

where are the beautiful ones where did they go

Yellow

my dreams are vivid a world of blue & sepia the smells of guava & smoke car exhaust & charred peanuts a city built around two rivers the site of their joining faces vaguely familiar brown skin shining with sweat with perfumed oil a song that never stops playing thick gnarl of a doum tree bright shock of bougainvillea eloquent stink of that faraway river

& then i wake up pale sunlight streaming in

& the room lights up around me photographs taped to the wall above my bed cassettes & cds shelved messily in the far corner an arabic workbook splayed

on the floor filled with earnest cursive scrawls i sit up & blink away the last of the dream

its colors retreating outside the day is unseasonably warm i float sleepily into the morning

brushing my teeth splashing water

onto my pillow-creased face the kitchen wafting warm

& milky smells & back in my room spread like a ray of sunlight across the unmade bed

is mama’s yellow dress calling to me almost

by name i rush toward it with a squeal

of excitement hurry out of my pajamas & slip it over my head & the silk shimmers around me

like something liquid

i turn to the mirror & twirl like the girl in the photograph like aisha before me & midspin i catch her standing in the doorway the beautiful girl who became my mother her face buoyant & alive as she claps her hands oh, nima you were made for that color & i feel warm in the yellow in my belonging to her as she names me my precious girl my graceful one

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Even during the times when I did not know where I was from, I have always known those to whom I belong. My communities are my country, are my home, are my place in the world. This book is for them, and made possible by them, by the ways their love has held and shaped me.

Before this book, I might have been happy to spend the rest of my life only doing the things I already knew how to do. I am grateful to Christopher Myers for the invitation to grow, for meeting me for breakfast whenever I needed to remember that the tools I already had could be used in new ways. Thank you for your friendship, and for your faith in me.

Thank you to Ammi-Joan Paquette, my agent, for the phone calls, for being the first reader of the manuscript that would become this book, for taking a chance on me. Thank you to Michelle Frey, my editor, for your care, for the warmth and rigor of your eye, for sculpting this book with me.

Every word I write is in gratitude to my many teachers, to the lateral mentorship I found among my peers, who are so unselfish with what they know, who teach me with poems and group chats and emails and long impromptu phone calls. Thank you to Elizabeth Acevedo, this book’s auntie; I am grateful for your sisterhood, your generosity, and for the better worlds you’ve dreamt for us. Thank you to Clint Smith, to Team Cowork.

Thank you to Team Mashallah, my siblings: Fatimah Asghar, Angel Nafis, Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar. Thank you to my Beotis family, to my Stegner cohort, and to the communities I’ve found at Cave Canem, Slam! at NYU, the DC Youth Slam Team, and Split This Rock. To Kamau Brathwaite, Louise Glück, Eavan Boland, Patrick Phillips, and Mark

Bibbins—I am grateful for your classrooms and your considerate attention, under which I’ve watched myself blossom into newer and more infinite shapes.

To my childhood besties, my Scorpios, my long unbroken line: Basma Rustom and Awrad Saleh. Gonna love you forever, like I’ve been doing.

The greatest and most important honor of my life is being the daughter of Safaa El-Kogali, the sister of Almustafa Elhillo, the granddaughter of Habab Elmahdi and Eltayeb El-Kogali, a niece and a cousin to my huge and rowdy and incredible family. Thank you to my ancestors for all my names, for the stories. I hope you’ll never stop telling them to me.

Christopher Gabriel Núñez, my love, my lifelong accomplice. Thank you for building this life with me. Thank you for the hours spent answering and re-answering all my questions about narrative, for that syllabus you made me, for being my partner in every sense, for your enormous laugh and for making breakfast. This book is one of the thousand ways you are generous. Thank you for the gift of your family. Thank you to Margarita and Fernando, to Karina and Tatiana and JP, to tías Olga and Fanny.

To the global Sudanese community, particularly in the DMV and New York and the Bay Area: thank you for this immense siblinghood, for teaching me that a home is a thing to be made, not to be lost or found.

Thank you for reminding me of the fact of my own hands. Thank you for being the funniest people on the planet, and for knowing exactly how to make me cry. I am proud to be yours and to know that my name lives among your names.

Aris Theotokatos

SAFIA ELHILLO is the author of the poetry collection The January Children, which received the the 2016 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and a 2018 Arab American Book Award.

Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, she holds an MFA from The New School, a Cave Canem Fellowship, and a 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Safia is a Pushcart Prize nominee, co-winner of the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and listed in Forbes Africa's 2018 “30 Under 30.” She is a 2019-2021 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

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Document Outline

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Dedication

Prologue: New Country

i: The Photograph

ii: Baba

iii: Mama

iv: Haitham

v: School

vi: America

vii: Yasmeen

viii: Nostalgia Monster

ix: My Name

Part 1: The Other Side

1: The Airport

2: Mama

3: Haitham

4: Pyramids

5: Haitham

6: Haitham

7: An Illness

8: Haitham

9: Khaltu Hala

10: Mama

11: Overheard

12: Mama

13: The Photographs

14: Mama

15: Overheard

16: Another Life

17: Baba

18: Haitham

19: Boys

20: The Mirror

21: Videos

22: English

23: English

24: Halloween

25: Mama

26: Yasmeen

27: Yasmeen

28: Haitham

29: Bathwater

30: Haitham

31: Advice

32: Calling Haitham

33: Jinn

34: Boys

35: Arabic Class

36: The Headscarf

37: The Office

38: Outside the Office

39: Why Here

40: Ghosts

41: The Silence

42: Alone

43: Mama

44: Yasmeen

45: Haitham

46: The Bus

Part 2: Old Country

47: Haitham

48: Hala

49: Touched

50: Running

51: Street Fair

52: Houses

53: Trespassing

54: The Water

55: Caught

56: The Diner

57: The Stranger

58: The Stranger

59: The Driveway

60: The Airport

61: Broken Arabic

62: No Daughter

63: The Elevator

64: The Photograph

65: Home

66: Home

67: Haitham

68: Ashraf

69: Visitors

70: Haitham

71: The Lesson

72: The Lovers

73: Yasmeen

74: The House

75: Morning

76: The Photographs

77: Yasmeen

78: Room

79: Hala

80: Hala

81: Baba

82: Baba

83: The Coward

84: Mama

85: The Game

86: Quiet

87: A Country

88: Yasmeen

89: Half Possible

90: A Single Possibility

91: Yasmeen

92: Yesterday & Tomorrow

93: Dusk

94: The Lesson

95: An Alternate Possibility

96: A Life

97: Yasmeen

98: Yasmeen

99: Spirits

100: Alone

101: Alone

102: Yasmeen

103: The Plan

104: The Cafe

105: Yasmeen

106: Leaving

107: Breaking

108: The Officers

109: Leaving

110: Gone

111: Left Behind

112: The Baby

Part 3: Home Is Not a Country

113: The Portal

114: The Portal

115: Home

116: The Photographs

117: The Kitchen

118: Haitham

119: Haitham

120: Haitham

121: Home Is Not a Country

122: The Singer

123: Nima

124: Yasmeen

125: Jazz

126: Yellow

Acknowledgments

About the Author