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
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 b
ack 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