On Refuge
If this was a mount between
the land I must run from
and a place uncertain,
and I am ordered to
not look back,
I'd have become a pillar of salt,
somewhere between
desire and despair,
fear and fantasy,
between the best of me
and my inner beast.
I am tricked into thinking
that regret is remembrance,
attachment, affection, my almond tears,
sugared with foolish sentiment for all that was,
and could have been.
I'd have been stricken with fire,
if not for the tug of grace-
from flash news to hurry;
the hand that turns my cheek,
the hand that leads the way.
Some brimstones of hate
made me brave, not bold
enough to stay.
The moist heat that is just
a fever of lost homes
would have hardened me
to a monument of melancholy
and this nostalgia,
a pillar of burnt sugar.
For A on the Passing of His Grandmother
As if loss is the unforgiving wind, soaking the last embers of what once was a bonfire
until it lingers smoke and ash, you wrote. But your vigil was not for the dead. It
was for death itself to arrive.In rare musings, many hoped that it wouldn’t come like an
explosion to run from. A sudden death is merciless, leaving no light to return to, not
even the warmth of tiny flickers to soothe one’s grief. There’d be wishes for loss to come ever so gently, like this. There is no sting to stories told, but now remains an almost eternal wake of memories we cannot bury. A thousand hands cling to us
while we slowly loosen our grip on hope. Now we find ourselves unclasping them, one by one, day by day. We brush them off our sleeves, push them away, but they sneak up on us, tug our hem, our heart, creep into our dreams. Grief never really disappears. It just takes another form, like hope or birdhouses made of bullet holes.
The Other Women
Great writer, in me, I am. Propelled by love. Brave and brilliant, I spill my insides into the
world: girls, women, young and old, they crawl out of holes in pockets, ripped hems, and
buttonholes, alone. They hang on to strands of hair, dangling from a bun or a headscarf.
A little bit haram, peep through cracked teeth. They are blisters from burned hands,
oozing, beneath folds of wrinkles, regrets, or behind a smile.
I set them free. I have the keys, but sometimes forget where I put them, somewhere in
duty, the kitchen, in the mazes of motherhood, and under so many rugs that hide the
other women pulling me from wife. The rituals on mats offer temporary consolation. But
the women prefer the muse, the show, the stage, the salutations, their own names for
wise, and on licenses.
I hold them all together, sometimes in the cradle of forgetfulness where only their
weeping can make me remember. They make me strong enough to face and redeem
what has been left behind, to give it a name, and color to radiate so friends and
mothers, sisters, wives and tribe can spill out, too. A word that moves from utter
weakness to enough strength; we too are all the same, captives of a self, seeking a
hidden key.
I know, you might say. But not everyone does.
Artwork Courtesy of Reda Khalil
