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 grandmo
ther 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 sh
oulders
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
Home Is Not a Country Page 4
