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Sunday Green
we pot and re-
pot plants the way
our parents do with
the news at our backs
as if the soil from target was nazarene
as if we could grow orange
groves on fire escapes
(for bahia)
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Poem as Cloth
Ya Ramallah
In 1998
you were an awkward bride of an arranged marriage.
The stranger was leaving your house
your father entering.
You were lauded with gaudy gifts to win your favor.
You were tired girl.
Did not trust
the good news
any news.
Did not trust me
a distant cousin
looking for herself.
Like everyone else looking for them
selves within you.
I did not think you pretty or kind.
Only later when I realized
like my sisters and I
you had learned to hide
your charms deep.
They take everything they see.
We hide what we can.
Only when we had eaten together and
cried did we trust slowly
slowly
enough to whisper wishes to one another.
Ya Ramallah
I see your streets now rubble.
Your people pressed even more into you.
I did not think that possible.
They have entered you
tearing
the robes you held so closely to yourself
patched with fifty four years worth of refugee fabric.
Ya Ramallah
your people are stitching you
a new robe of poems and bread
of green
and red
of memory
and of bones.
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In America
right now you are standing
on stolen land no matter
where you are reading this poem
i promise below you is stolen
land was lakota was navajo
was creek was
and was and is and is and
this fact does not change
because you do not think
about it or you thought
the last Indian died before you were
born or you were born 1/15 Apache
this poem is not blaming you but
allowing you an opportunity to do
something start by saying something and
from where you are standing look North
South look West look East and see
the theft the occupation happening now
and do something start by
saying something
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Copyrights @ Suheir Hammad |
Manicures and Memory
In London
gray and wet I chose
the bottle for the color
orange
bright
poppy
the label read
Beirut
Simple as
Vienna Milan
nail varnish named after the Paris
of the East a cedar surprise on a cold English day
Memory does come in a bottle
sometimes politics appear in makeup
camouflage I sport Beirut
on my fingers and toes
I see
Sabra on my right hand
Shatila on my left
We are reliving 1982
this time
I am 28 and my parents
allow me to wear polish
It is still Sharon
still American loot
and still the dead
still
again bodies
bulldozed
poppies
unearthed
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Last words haiku
all i have is my
body i make my body
a bomb a bomb a
Some of My Best Friends
(for jed, ros, kevin, rachel, danny)
below their crisp skin
but above the pulse
they bear the
numbers
inked onto their ancestors
who chant in their blood
never
again never
they own their own names
they bring rugalach into
my home and share stories
of kids pulling hats in search of horns
we cry and laugh
together in one breath
we look for each other in crowds of flags
loud speakers who silence us our solidarity
angers others who would always
rather war
when we do we
argue with each other the way
we do within our selves
fiercely with the security of knowing
love is larger than our details
these are my people
and we are chosen
family eating darkness
hiccuping light
little by little by light by little by light together
http://www.suheirhammad.com
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Copyrights @ Suheir Hammad |
