I would give myself an A plus. Nobody has done what I’ve been able to do. –Donald Trump
Grade school mornings
we faced the flag,
hands over hearts,
pride of a nation pulsing inside us.
We compared report cards,
took cuts in line at recess,
played dodgeball in the thin Oakland fog.
Across town and on TV,
dark people got dragged away in handcuffs.
If we saw a drunk collapsed on the street,
we were told not to stare.
People dreamed of getting rich.
Years later, we heard about other countries.
Epidemics, famine, hospitals bombed.
Our kids pleaded for Happy Meals
while foreign children covered with flies
slumped in the dirt.
Thank God we lived in America.read more
from those shards of sunlight on icy fields
on cycling mornings that must be getting colder,
from here it is hard to believe that they exist:
landscapes away, I can try to imagine
the smokiness in the air and the stars after six,
the persimmons in the market and the dry mouths they leave behind,
the seasoned almonds on the kitchen tables: orange cinnamon, coffee, honey and lemon,
or highway and
barbed wire and
flattened yellow grasses under slices of metal
but I lost your body here:
slow walk straight back deep breaths and I thought I had healed
on a misty evening, around cobblestones sinking in dirty water
we were hand-in-hand, coming from the Turkish bath
an old woman in an apron leaned against her doorway and told me I was beautiful —read more
Under the orange trees,
he turned to me and said,
scratch that, all things are beautiful
could he feel
the kitchen table under my elbows,
the taut muscles of my father’s face
tendons like fists, then ropes
the wince, the rocking motion,
what an ugly thing
war is
fingering the dullness.
leaves of an olive tree,
a skirt that swallows dust,
a lime in a girl’s mouth,
skin stinging under fingernails
in the dives of birds over the orchard,
do I not love the world enough?
she is taking a little break from herself now.
her shadow has left the house now,
she cannot
hurt bodies
without it.
standing on a rooftop in Rabat,
she knows her shadow is the fog
fossilizing the city by eveningread more
Hind calls me mélange with a smile —
but on a crooked side street she likes my accent
and in the hammam she tells me I scrub like the Moroccans do
Her father and I cannot speak
in this house in the Ocean,
but he taps the table
when the sheep in the loft looks at me
and points to the cages
when the yellow birds sing
Gentle shriveled smile of dried fruit
He asks how many hours
from San Francisco to Rabat?
and how do you say in Spanish? and he points
borrego — borrego
until he gets it right
I think I have been here before,
inhale of ammonia and livestock,
folded hands on stained tablecloth
In the prayer room,
I speak French braids,
Hind’s hair thick and oily
tangled like the medina,
Kerima’s soft and clean
from the shower in the new apartment in Salé,
and Saida’s is long, long, long
falling from her head scarf in waves
(the women laugh when I am surprised)read more
