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nabil anani, "palestinian folklore," 2020, acrylic on canvas

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Spoiler

by Hala Alyan

Can you diagnose fear? The red tree blooming from uterus to throat. It’s one long nerve, the doctor says. There’s a reason breathing helps, the muscles slackening like a dead marriage. Mine are simple things. Food poisoning in Paris. Hospital lobbies. My husband laughing in another room. (The door closed.) For days, I cradle my breast and worry the cyst like a bead. There’s nothing to pray away. The tree loves her cutter. The nightmares have stopped, I tell the doctor. I know why. They stopped because I baptized them. This is how my mother and I speak of dying—the thing you turn away by letting in. I’m tired of April. It’s killed our matriarchs and, in the back yard, I’ve planted an olive sapling in the wrong soil. There is a droopiness to the branches that reminds me of my friend, the one who calls to ask what’s the point, or the patients who come to me, swarmed with misery and astonishment, their hearts like newborns after the first needle. What now, they all want to know. What now. I imagine it like a beach. There is a magnificent sand castle that has taken years to build. A row of pink seashells for gables, rooms of pebble and driftwood. This is your life. Then comes the affair, nagging bloodwork, a freeway pileup. The tide moves in. The water eats your work like a drove of wild birds. There is debris. A tatter of sea grass and blood from where you scratched your own arm trying to fight the current. It might not happen for a long time, but one day you run your fingers through the sand again, scoop a fistful out, and pat it into a new floor. You can believe in anything, so why not believe this will last? The seashell rafter like eyes in the gloaming. I’m here to tell you the tide will never stop coming in. I’m here to tell you whatever you build will be ruined, so make it beautiful.

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it is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender

—Jenny Holzer, “Truisms” (1983–1985)

by Safia Elhillo

it’s true doctor i am a firstborn a daughter a fluvial child of loss         & yes of course

i love blame it is my government it is my god my own hand ready to take fault when disaster ignites

(if i had only called then [    ] would still be alive) (if i wasn’t so often gone the house would not

have been broken into) & at night i make ablution & heave my leathered knees into a prayer

to ask the large & featureless creator why & why & why & when i finish i fold the mat & rise

turn to my own face in the mirror & list because    because    because

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Everything in Our World Did Not Seem to Fit

by Aziz Shihab in Naomi Shihab Nye

Once they started invading us. Taking our houses and trees, drawing lines, pushing us into tiny places. It wasn’t a bargain or deal or even a real war. To this day they pretend it was. But it was something else. We were sorry what happened to them but we had nothing to do with it. You don’t think what a little plot of land means till someone takes it and you can’t go back. Your feet still want to walk there. Now you are drifting worse than homeless dust, very lost feeling. I cried even to think of our hallway, cool stone passage inside the door. Nothing would fit for years. They came with guns, uniforms, declarations. LIFE magazine said, “It was surprising to find some Arabs still in their houses.” Surprising? Where else would we be? Up on the hillsides? Conversing with mint and sheep, digging in dirt? Why was someone else’s need for a home greater than our own need for our own homes we were already living in? No one has ever been able to explain this sufficiently. But they find a lot of other things to talk about.

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Instructions for making Arabic Coffee

by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Never let the coffee boil over, you need to keep the crema and spoon a little into each cup.

It’s like a smiling face to welcome your guests.

And never serve coffee without ground cardamom. It’s like saying I didn’t dress up for you, I put on no perfume.

And never serve your guests coffee without sugar. It’s like saying You are bitter company.

And never sweeten your lover’s afternoon coffee. It’s like saying Your lips aren’t sweet enough for me.

And never pour too much into one cup. It’s like saying My heart is too full for you.

And never serve the coffee without a glass of water to quench thirst and soften the conversation.

And never serve the coffee first. It’s like saying You’ve been here too long.

Coffee’s acrid kiss is for farewells.

And never never in your whole livelong life umrek bi hayaatek

never read your lover’s coffee cup. It’s like saying I am not afraid to lose you.

Fortune-telling is not for the faint of heart. Leave that to your mother

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“The Only Democracy in the Middle East”

by Aziz Shihab in Naomi Shihab Nye

Please leave your house immediately. Do not call it a home. This is our home not yours. Security demands it. Always, always, security. Our security. Take nothing, ask nothing. Stand over there, against the rubble, where you belong. All young men, come with us. You may not see your families again. No saying goodbye or hugging. We have suffered too much thanks to everyone but you are the only ones we can touch. Don’t give us any trouble.

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Member of the Tribe

by Aziz Shihab in Naomi Shihab Nye

Unfortunately it’s true. Like it or not. Educated or not. This is one of the many things Americans don’t understand about Iraq. Kill a member of the tribe, the whole tribe now hates you. How could they not? The Americans think they hate you today, thank you tomorrow. Tribes are like tape recorders, they won’t forget. Don’t ask me how Arabs kill Arabs, knowing this. As for Afghanistan, I don’t understand that at all. I don’t understand so many things. Still, we must tell what we know.

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When One Is So Far from Home, Life Is a Mix of Fact and Fiction

by Aziz Shihab in Naomi Shihab Nye

No one should hold that against you. It’s a means of survival. Sometimes I thought my best talent was taking a skinny story, adding wings and a tail. Dressing it in a woolen Bedouin cloak with stitching around the edges. Putting a headdress on it. Making a better picture. Your mother got mad at me sometimes for telling a story differently but it wasn’t a lie, just a story in different clothes with other things emphasized. My own mother dressed up stories for 106 years till that last winter she rode in her bed like a boat, sitting up to sleep. Maybe it’s our duty to be shaped a hundred times by the same stories. We think we’re telling them but really they’re keeping us alive, memory oxygen breathed out and in.

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american-Palestinian incantation

by Fargo Nissim Tbakhi

absence makes the heart. like water, i learn what shape to take based on the space i must fill today. i do not believe in object permanence. i do not believe that dogs are my best friend. i do believe in ghosts. you can fall in love with them. on days i feel too solid, i wear the border around my neck: black and white, fishnet patterned, tasseled. this way you do not have to wonder in which language my blood moans. my veins a cyst filled to the brim. like an arcade claw machine, i am far too good at letting go: you do not text me for a day and i give you a viking's funeral. i have learned that grief is better when quick and efficient: there is too much of it too often. i was born a taurus in the year of the ox: doubly stubborn, my feet grow three inches into the dirt everywhere i walk. i am rooted. what can i say? years ago, my grandfather dug his heels in against the settlers. as for me, i am half seraph and half queer. i have taken the liberty of stitching a dotted line into my skin. this way you do not have to wonder which country you're kissing. i do believe words emerge from walls, not the other way around. i do believe in parallel universes. i believe that in one of them, i belong somewhere. in one of them, my grandfather and i at this very moment are comparing shoe sizes. in one of them i kiss his soles and taste a dirt i can name. i wear the family photo album around my neck, and the faces become new to me again each time i open it. if i am not looking at something it is not real — this makes me a baby. this makes me palestinian. this makes me difficult to love. what can i tell you? the things that made us remake us again and again. i am nothing if not exhausted. i believe in missiles. i believe in tunneling underneath walls. i believe that god, too, has kissable feet. what can i say? years ago, my grandfather looked away and when he looked back, home was gone. i do believe that if i do not blink, if i only keep on looking, it will come back.

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what i learned in the fire

by Safia Elhillo

my body is a pill, small, and love is the wrong man’s tongue to tell me so my body dissolves my body finds men who are water and calls them home

my body is everything that happened to me love is a thing my body borrows to forget love is a pill my body is water. my body is a tongue and love dissolves love calls the wrong men home love makes my body a stain and goes looking for water on the wrong man’s tongue

love is a house, my body is a bath drawn in floodwater my body trickles in through the floorboards love is the carpet that i’ve ruined love is an alternative to water, love is just something to do until the wars start my body is a border drawn up by some man long ago love is everything that happened in between love is the floorboards my body is decoration love ruined all the carpets my body is the carpet my body is the stain love makes it all dissolve love is an alternative to home love is floodwater

my body burned to the ground my body called the wrong man home love started the fire my body is everything that happened after

the wrong man is an alternative to love the wrong man is a map home is where he puts the lines my body is a border drawn by accident by the wrong man’s tongue love makes scars on my body and calls them borders the wrong man mistakes my body for a body of water love let the wrong man decide what my body mistakes for home love started the fire

my body is a house on fire my body drew a bath in floodwater the wrong man is floodwater love and the wrong man are an alternative to hating my body my body is a body of water, poured over everything that happened to me my body makes every scar an island the wrong man makes my body small, a pill love makes the water and my body dissolves

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Exit Interview

by Safia Elhillo

—after Eve Ewing

Q: A: i was born here Q: A: where am i A: from Q: A: from denotes a starting point A: [a train running west from chicago] Q: A: [two miles from shore] [twenty years from now] Q: A: & go where Q: A: i was born here Q: A: i was born here Q: A: you draw the [border] you know the [answer] Q: A: what would you like me to [say] A: that [exile] is [home] minus [country] how boring Q: A: [home] minus [from] Q: A: okay [country] minus [country] A: how’s that

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Owl Song

by Margaret Atwood

I am the heart of a murdered woman who took the wrong way home who was strangled in a vacant lot and not buried who was shot with care beneath a tree who was mutilated by a crisp knife. There are many of us.

I grew feathers and tore my way out of her; I am shaped like a feathered heart. My mouth is a chisel, my hands the crimes done by hands.

I sit in the forest talking of death which is monotonous: though there are many ways of dying there is only one death song, the colour of mist: it says   Why   Why

I do not want revenge, I do not want expiation, I only want to ask someone how I was lost, how I was lost

I am the lost heart of a murderer who has not yet killed, who does not yet know he wishes to kill; who is still the same as the others

I am looking for him, he will have answers for me, he will watch his step, he will be cautious and violent, my claws will grow through his hands and become claws, he will not be caught.

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Night walk

by Franz Wright

The all-night convenience store's empty and no one is behind the counter. You open and shut the glass door a few times causing a bell to go off, but no one appears. You only came to but a pack of cigarettes, maybe a copy of yesterday's newspaper -- finally you take one and leave thirty-five cents in its place. It is freezing, but it is a good thing to step outside again: you can feel less alone in the night, with lights on here and there between the dark buildings and trees. Your own among them, somewhere. There must be thousands of people in this city who are dying to welcome you into their small bolted rooms, to sit you down and tell you what has happened to their lives. And the night smells like snow. Walking home for a moment you almost believe you could start again. And an intense love rushes to your heart, and hope. It's unendurable, unendurable.

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The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

by Franny Choi

Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse of boats: boats of prisoners, boats cracking under sky-iron, boats making corpses bloom like algae on the shore. Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse of the bombed mosque. There was the apocalypse of the taxi driver warped by flame. There was the apocalypse of the leaving, and the having left— of my mother unsticking herself from her mother’s grave as the plane barreled down the runway. Before the apocalypse, there was the apocalypse of planes. There was the apocalypse of pipelines legislating their way through sacred water, and the apocalypse of the dogs. Before which was the apocalypse of the dogs and the hoses. Before which, the apocalypse of dogs and slave catchers whose faces glowed by lantern-light. Before the apocalypse, the apocalypse of bees. The apocalypse of  buses. Border fence apocalypse. Coat hanger apocalypse. Apocalypse in the textbooks’ selective silences. There was the apocalypse of the settlement and the soda machine; the apocalypse of the settlement and the jars of scalps; there was the bedlam of the cannery; the radioactive rain; the chairless martyr demanding a name. I was born from an apocalypse and have come to tell you what I know—which is that the apocalypse began when Columbus praised God and lowered his anchor. It began when a continent was drawn into cutlets. It began when Kublai Khan told Marco, Begin at the beginning. By the time the apocalypse began, the world had already ended. It ended every day for a century or two. It ended, and another ending world spun in its place. It ended, and we woke up and ordered Greek coffees, drew the hot liquid through our teeth, as everywhere, the apocalypse rumbled, the apocalypse remembered, our dear, beloved apocalypse—it drifted slowly from the trees all around us, so loud we stopped hearing it.

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Arabic

by Danusha Laméris

I don’t remember the sounds rising from below my breastbone though I spoke that golden language with the girls of Beirut, playing hopscotch on the hot asphalt. We called out to our mothers for lemonade, and when the men walking home from work stooped down, slipped us coins for candy, we thanked them. At the market, I understood the bargaining of the butcher, the vendors of fig and bread. In Arabic, I whispered into the tufted ears of a donkey, professing my love. And in Arabic I sang at school, or dreamt at night. There is an Arab saying, Sad are only those who understand. What did I know then of the endless trail of losses? In the years that have passed, I’ve buried a lover, a brother, a son. At night, the low drumroll of bombs eroded the edges of the city. The girls? Who knows what has been taken from them.

For a brief season I woke to a man who would whisper to me in Arabic, then tap the valley of my sternum, ask me to repeat each word, coaxing the rusty syllables from my throat. See, he said, they’re still here. Though even that memory is faint. And maybe he was right. What’s gone is not quite gone, but lingers. Not the language, but the bones of the language. Not the beloved, but the dark bed the beloved makes inside our bodies.

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I Want to Die

by TARIQ LUTHUN

in the arms of everyone who’s ever loved me, each appendage a tendril expanding into the ether of every moment I am leaving behind. Know this: I have dabbled

in the enterprise of affection; cut my teeth on what it means to hold and be held. Behold: everything that has ever been labeled “mine” was stolen.

From me, but also now by me. The land: from us, and now the land we were stolen to. I belong to nothing

but my friends—those who have entrusted me with the gift of caring for them. For years, I trained myself to not feel for anything to spare myself of having to feel

for everything: no partner, no child; my parents will soon be gone too. Can you blame me? I watched men and women say things they don’t mean and claim lives

from bodies they won’t ever eat. Some can’t stomach culling the protein from a fly, but drop before the silhouette of a gun. Have you ever fallen for something empty

as a word? For me, it was  joy—the way it bounces when spoken. For years, I would whisper it hopelessly to the moon. I thought nothing of it

until I found myself brave enough to chant before the sun— it was in this light that I came to find my peoples. I took shape among them:

Joy. Joy. Joy—what a lovely thing to feel. But, then again, the word doom exists—sometimes

it’s almost too fun not to say. Apocalypse. Even cicada sounds lovely with the right inflection. I wonder if it’s stronger to nestle into the chest of one’s sadness, or to lie about it. Once, as a child, I spent a late summer night poking holes

into the window mesh that shielded us against the bugs we had stolen away from. Each puncture

a compromise with those creatures seeking refuge. As I did it, I repeated the syllables:

sim-muh-nim, sim-muh-nim

caught between cinnamon and synonym. Letting each letter pass through until the end of the word. I imagine that when this world ends, it will happen like a boy

yearning to be released from a warm room— little by little, not all at once; unbothered by the thought of  losing his place.