Bluesky

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 upthe Arabic words for poem and hair. Words forhead and rice. My son andcheese. There is no easy way to make these mistakesbelievable in this artless daylight. Most mornings, you wake upand ask if it’s nighttime for someone else. I rememberthe father in Gaza, swaddling his son beforethe bombing begins, having carefully writtena name on each of his baby’s limbswhile I carry you downstairs, whole, squirming with life.I return to an earlier draft of this poem, one I beganthe day I learned you were coming, thinkingI had so much to say whenhow badly I just wanted that poem to protect you. Howcould it? I start over. You wake another morningand don’t eat the eggs you requested. I wrestle you dressed and driveus 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 chestto rise just one more time. You wakeagain, and I’m mourning because oh mercy,all I have, this voice I meant to pass you like a batonbut instead fumble around the house. Would you lovean apple? I say everything twice.What color are your eyes? For God’s sake,take the medicine or I’ll die. It isn’t enoughto be buried by you in the end so I ask youto bury me endlessly. Over the milk in the medicinedropper you can barely swallow with the ulcers in your throat,the shit you stain on my shirt, and the feverI pray all night will break, may you bury me.When the doctors first pressed youagainst my chest, your warmth was a map homeburning in my hands faster than I could learn its landscape. This glut and guilt of another morningwhen you wake and someone you resembledoes not. All I have left in this world is a word for burialwhich does not belong only to deathbut the love in my heart, our inheritance of even morelight. I want to see you liveeveryday.