Sarah’s Petition
Hagar, have you forgotten our days in the palace
of the swinger pharaoh, and we the only women fasting
instead of primping in sheer linens by the pool?
Years in Cordoba we late-night karaoked
songs of three religions together, while thieves
knived slits into the brickwork of our house
Remember Fustat, where I mortar-and-pestled
the one herb that drew fever from you?
Or those evenings we translated Cairo
Geniza archives for esoteric publication?
How many river crossings we made clinging
to each other’s bodies against cutthroat rocks
Having you in my house was like fostering a teenager
One minute you’re French-braiding her hair,
three tresses trusting in one goal, the next
she’s raining Crusader arrows on you
from Nisaan to Adar
Now all our languages have turned to dirt in the mouth,
a heap of animal intestines to scrape
after the glory sacrifice by a man
We did not cut off foreskin for each other, Hajar
We are not married and we are not kin
There is no sign on my body of you
Do we just forget, like the needle when
a one-hit-wonder thump-thump-thumps
the vinyl that’s so over?
Hajar and the Right of Return
Sarah, I would love to crank up the gramophone
of our Ottoman-era garage band hits
but it’s in the Jaffa house
and I’m not allowed past the checkpoint
Who sent me to diaspora desert, a teen mother,
with my child and one half-full waterskin? Who still
stands by the man refusing to stamp my visa—
back to my own home?
To disinherit me and still be the victim—
Sarah, kufiyehs off to you
Photo Courtesy of Jennifer Weigel
