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Art
Art is our reparation for love and wisdom,
loss and prospect,
the same art that has destroyed its makers’ minds and fingertips created everything else in our stead and left us hungry.
Art that teaches us pain leaves a mark, but happiness courses ordinary.
Art that turned orphanhood into a sign and darkness into a road,
listen to me: I’m aware that all sorts of machines roll over you,
all kinds of wires above and below ground,
pipes and conduits, arterial technologies that deprive you of air.
But don’t leave us even if we leave you,
don’t turn away your face.
We’ve behaved like this before,
abandoned life and received you,
and nothing happened.
You enlivened us,
became our ally in war and exile,
our partner on warm and cold nights when we were made lonely or made others lonely.
So don’t do it,
whether our voices ebb or flow on your tenacious modesty,
don’t feel ashamed of your beauty and don’t abandon us to monstrosity.
Everything else returns us to our high cliffs where life in its maximum elegance is stretched out between us and death.
Only you can lie as you tell the truth and make it possible.
***
My Laugh
I’m exhausted from smuggling my laugh out of my psychology,
smuggling my laugh out of the fates of those I love,
out of videos of slaughtered children and children who will be kidnapped from their magical smiles tomorrow,
exhausted from smuggling my laugh out of sins, ugly secrets,
and in ripped stockings: my jarring laugh that breaks my ribs and gashes public decency.
***
Since They Told Me My Love Won’t Be Coming Back from the War
I tried everything:
God, for example,
I leaned on his chest and prayed,
and on that rug, once and for all,
I learned that my love won’t come back, and that if he did won’t recognize me.
I tried my hand at politics,
memorized patriotic songs,
befriended legislators,
adored warriors,
but seasonal and moody they changed their faces as they do their speeches once they got close to my pockets.
And then I knew that my love won’t know me even if he returns.
Since they told me my love won’t be coming back from the war,
I’ve been writing our children’s names on clouds and in journals,
documenting their birthdays,
shoe sizes, the poems they recite,
and once and for all,
I learned that all of them won’t be coming back from the war,
and neither will I.
***
Elegy for the Desire of Mothers
As I make my bed and my two kids’ beds,
I’ll remember. As I wipe one’s vomit off the floor,
open a window to the dust on the road,
trim rose thorns in a pot that doesn’t bud,
and as I read a recipe for authentic mansaf,
mend a white gown that little fingers have ripped holes through,
I’ll remember. As I balance winter’s budget,
sniff a quilt for ammonia,
flip through the six children channels looking for Tom and Jerry per request,
and as I search in my supermarket of a purse for a stray pad, I’ll remember.
As I bathe a body the size of my palm,
remove green boogers from tender nostrils,
untangle hair that chocolate, lollipop,
and apricot jam have invaded,
and as I read stories about vibrant ants, lazy lions,
and migrant seals, degum my heart and the sole of my shoe,
search for the best method to remove oil stains from fabric,
clip twenty nails after a long quest for clippers,
I’ll remember. When a child touches me innocently in places that no longer work,
when the faucet sprays me, and Turkish soap operas declare me their number-one fan.
When two hands pinch me under the table in a restaurant. And when I mine my friends’ stories for living desires,
I’ll remember to mention them all,
mothers with jaundiced eyes spilling before me whole,
their dazzling thighs that defile the house, their fleeting anger in certain times of the month,
their excessive anxiety over the phone bill,
their belly cramps of endless bloating,
and their interpretation of dreams for little ridiculous devils,
their coffee cups for fortune-telling,
their song of a blue skirt and a broad knee,
lips that ooze from self-biting,
large bras to safekeep coins and bills,
forgotten aprons over plump guts,
and the nonstop anecdotes about the licentious girls next door,
mothers with cut braids and clay henna on both sides of a face,
and dead desires.
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