Home Is Not a Country Read online

  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 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