But first, I say: يا عمي.                              I have never been taught a geography 

                                                                                                Unmarked by  cataclysm,

all islands seem            

to be drowning.                                   He frowns, grunts a sweet sound

                                                                                                only a عمو second to no man  but

                                                                                                Baba can muster. Asks:

isn't that what their vile mouths

have always wanted? يابنى every dawn

is a gift.                                            Who are we without open arms?

                                                                                                 I know too well what it is to dream

                                                                                                 without rest. I have asked for nothing

                                                                                                 but hair of thick night, brushed

                                                                                                 across a brown brow, clear;

a beckoning horizon,

all my children need to know

that day is always coming,

                                                                                                 the light is already here.

يا سلام

                                                                                                 What has the world made of you?

I confess:                                           an apparition in transit; eyes like

                                                                                                  scarabs, small desert things, as silly

                                                                                                  as they are pretty, can be crushed if

                                                                                                  need be.

I had a mouth of dry sea, an empty

landscape, miles of antiques

poking out of the sand. I had the teeth

of a dull blade, of recession and wasted aid.

I had the neck of lamb, soft when silenced.

                                                                                                  Children gathered to watch how

                                                                                                  kitchen knives made a budding  rose

                                                                                                  of it. I had a chest  of bronze, as in

                                                                                                  the age, as  in

a language bowing to a foreigner’s name.

I had                                                the heart of a stallion shipped  as far

                                                                                                  as possible from the land that birthed

                                                                                                  him. I had

the gut of the calm after

the storm has been forgotten, after

we turn around the boats, let sand and sea

make a home out of our brethren's still bodies.

I had                                                an arm of rubber, flexible to a fault.

Knees of gelatin—                                  there was nothing halal about this.

My feet were a force to be laughed at,

but also lined up; given direction

when needed.                                      And now that you have walked here,

he asks, what will you make

of the morning?                                   What is a land unburdened by blood? I say:

I want a here we craft

with our hands;                                    bring your folk — tell them to bring

                                                                                                 their folk, all folk who’ve inherited

                                                                                                 the taste of steel,

and all folk who vow to                            spit it out. We will

meet under an open sky.

Bring your bread, your rice,

your chicken. I know no greater love

than the warm hand after the full belly,

or a wave of music washing over

a gyrating body, the ecstasy

of jiving to the earth.

​

And what of the weight

of language, he interrupts,

how does the body learn to                        carry that which once tried to break

                                                                                                  us.

Mourn a century. I know

he knows the answer,

nonetheless, I say:                                  I long to lock arms with all y'all, my

                                                                                                  beoble;

all my beobles, come:                               let us rudely interrupt  our own

                                                                                                  English. I don't need you to explain

                                                                                                  what that word means.

I've left all screens in a faraway world.

Put your throat against mine. Let us vibrate

viciously,                                           accentuate all accented syllables.

My whole life I waited for a spring

of strings and now                                 this music is the only kind of language I need.                                                                                                       Once, I cursed the

                                                                                                  prick of that tongue that could not

                                                                                                  say my name. Here,

I find enough forgiveness to bury

the violence of this English. Here,                  I can say: praise

English,                                             and you know I mean our English,

as spoken by  Mama and Baba, broken

and rebuilt by the b's of my teita:                  do you hear

how her bronunciation is boetry

in and of itself?                                     English — reborn, glowing as

                                                                                                   accents, vernaculars, pidgins,

                                                                                                   creoles —

baptized in all the glory weak hands

once tried to snatch from us –all of us–

who never asked for this language, but have       bent to fit our bodies just the same.

 

We alchemy the tongue. We epic

rhetoric, revive dead rivers with                    every word reclaimed. We summon

the rain  with our throats. يا شعوبي

At last here comes                                  a train we don't need to fear. Screech                                                                  serenades the night, like

Hugh's trumpet. Behold,                            a river of dark wine without sin,

borders nothing but a deranged

dying man's fever dream. A song

we stop listening to.                                Edward smiles. He takes me by the

                                                      shoulder:

​

                                                      Drink up. Drink whole. We've earned

                                                      a wide world we will never need to

                                                      apologize for.