Tooqborni
For Theo
“It is not enough // to say love in Arabic. / You must say // be the thing that buries me.” — Hala Alyan
All the time as a kid, I mixed up
the Arabic words for poem and hair. Words for
head and rice. My son and
cheese. There is no easy way to make these mistakes
believable in this artless daylight. Most mornings, you wake up
and ask if it’s nighttime for someone else. I remember
the father in Gaza, swaddling his son before
the bombing begins, having carefully written
a name on each of his baby’s limbs
while I carry you downstairs, whole, squirming with life.
I return to an earlier draft of this poem, one I began
the day I learned you were coming, thinking
I had so much to say when
how badly I just wanted that poem to protect you. How
could it? I start over. You wake another morning
and don’t eat the eggs you requested. I wrestle you dressed and drive
us to school. We count the stoplights in Arabic. Wahad, you begin.
Tanain. Batata. The mistake is sweet on our tongues,
but I let fear back in. So many nights,
I would wait for the anthill of your chest
to rise just one more time. You wake
again, and I’m mourning because oh mercy,
all I have, this voice I meant to pass you like a baton
but instead fumble around the house. Would you love
an apple? I say everything twice.
What color are your eyes? For God’s sake,
take the medicine or I’ll die. It isn’t enough
to be buried by you in the end so I ask you
to bury me endlessly. Over the milk in the medicine
dropper you can barely swallow with the ulcers in your throat,
the shit you stain on my shirt, and the fever
I pray all night will break, may you bury me.
When the doctors first pressed you
against my chest, your warmth was a map home
burning in my hands faster than I could
learn its landscape. This glut and guilt of another morning
when you wake and someone you resemble
does not. All I have left in
this world is a word for burial
which does not belong only to death
but the love in my heart, our inheritance of even more
light. I want to see you live
everyday.
Support independent journalism that does not fall in line
Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets.
Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.
As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war.
In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth.
The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more.
But this journalism is possible only with your support.
This March, The Nation needs to raise $50,000 to ensure that we have the resources for reporting and analysis that sets the record straight and empowers people of conscience to organize. Will you donate today?
