Elmaz Abi-Nader

This is my place. My territory, Landing

strip of my anxieties. Heaven

upside down. It's my place, and I won't change it

for any other. I fell, and I'm not sorry,

From Juicio Final, by Blas de Otero

translated by Hardie St. Martin

Preparing for Occupation

Buy only short books, ones that read quickly with plots

you can keep track of when the pounding starts on the door.

Drive no nails into the wall, no pictures, no pencil sharpener

or mirror. Your face doesn't matter any way. You are no one.

Teach your children at home. Or leave them idle to wander

the streets to find a funeral parade; a crowd to join.

Use only votive candles so they can burn out before morning.

Stash your cigarettes in your pocket. Leave nothing

in the cupboards to remind them but a child's toy.

Adopt no pets. Hook up no phones. Print no cards, address

labels or stationery. Test your batteries daily.

All your clothes must be light, in similar colors and never need

ironing. Your only family heirlooms are habit, memory, name and song. Believe that placing your daughter upon your shoulders will be home enough for her as she feels

for something familiar.

Avoid meeting the neighbors unless you've known them

since birth. Be careful of the bird flirting with you in the yard;

one of you may soon fly away.

One of you has migratory patterns.

You've been here thousands of years. But aren't your people

nomadic anyway? Can't you pitch your tent in a grove

on the outskirts? Move in with relatives? Cross into another

country, clogging the border with shanty towns, waiting

to return? I've seen you together; you prefer to be together.

Because this house bears the prints of your children

upon the wall, because the kitchen is furrowed

from your journeys made to the table from the stove,

the stove to the table, because the floor is pocked

from the weight of your davenport, doesn't mean

you can't move on.

The walls have echoed your voices, your sighs floated

up to the ceiling and gathered like clouds in a refugee sky. Remember the time your son opened the door so quickly

the bulghur flew off the table and around the room?

Grains are in the corners still.

You will miss nothing: the window that refuses to open,

the sputtering light of the refrigerator, the leaking pipe

in the girls' room; the cat that crosses the fence in the morning.

He is not your family although your recognize him.

This is not your town, although you walked its streets

on your wedding day. Local water mixes with your blood.

This is not your country despite its dust covering

your shoes, the songs you have memorized; the poets

you claim as your own. Don't look down.

Look up. When the geese are passing in their vee formation, join them, tuck your treasures under your wings.

From the refugee sky, you can count the bodies below you,

examine the shipwreck of your home while others pick

through the remains.

 

Letters From Home
to my father


Everytime you weep, I feel the surface of a river

somewhere on Earth is breaking.

You wipe your eyes as you read

aloud a letter from the old country.

From the floor, I watch the curls of the words

through the sheer pages.

Your brother and sister have gathered

around you. I don't understand

the language but feel a single breath

of grief holding this room.

 

Your mother writes of her weakening body.

She walks to church but cannot leave

the village. When you sat with her,

You wanted her forgiveness for your absence

but did not ask. She took you to her closet

to show you the linens she had gathered

which have already yellowed. Her hands

seemed small through the lace. You kissed

her palms, smelling your own fragrance on her skin.

 

She tells you of the refuge people have found

in the village. Others have gone to Paris.

You have a niece who is a doctor,

a nephew, an architect. Your own children

seem like nomads. They sit in scattered apartments

where you can't see your three daughters

gazing from their windows or your three sons

pacing the old wood of their rooms.

Yet you write to your mother,

they still pray.

 

You visit your mother now when you can

Each summer you cross the Mediterranean;

each summer you stand behind her house

looking into the sea hoping she will not die,

this time. And when these letters come,

I run my finger across the pages.

I hope I can learn the languages

you have come to know.

 

Elmaz Abi-Nader

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