You Must

Do you remember the ripened flesh ripping?

The sound of the matriarchs dying?

Mallow leaves etiolating?

Do you remember a rock skipping across the water of her womb and then disappearing? Her. My mama. 

Remember, we were not anointed to bear this special suffering

We want for double apple joy and mundane gossip too

Steady hands macerating in the moon

The wooden mortar and pestle 

All the desires crushed in cardamom 

Remember these thick calves — hers 

These wide hips — hers, eight times over 

Remember, your light began inside a woman you never met

This is not poetry. It is science.

I remember the dreams deferred 

And the longing originating in the back of my throat 

All the times we swallowed the sea

Sputtering the plastic our parents inherited us 

Searching for all the words we could not know

Like grace (or a promise you can’t break) 

I remember the empires of dough 

Leavened by longing 

And the tongues tracing tradition back to the beginning

Hearts ornamented by gilded verses that command: read

I remember - and do not remember - the way hunger churns like concrete in the stomachs of children. Then the hardening. 

We are still paying the price.

I remember the city of citrus where my baba shed the skin of his boyhood

Much too soon

The orange rind is still stuck under his fingernails 

And in the slowness of April 

I remember the sap rising 

To kiss the tips of its branches 

Blessing our lips with the richest pressed olives

I remember the open borders and how toasted sesame seeds are a song your homeland sings only for you

Come, I can show you

The mountains breaking on the shore of every bronzed giggle

The chafing of thighs

The women ululating without covering their mouths

And the way meditation stopped the war in one village in Lebanon

This is not poetry. It is history.

In every way, I remember 

The inherited shame of a body that cannot but ache for your familiar violence 

And it is a fact that your hands will touch what they reach for 

But please remember that the tired persimmons are waiting patiently too

As are all the songs of Um Kulthum

Even the ones that make the old men cry

The ones you already know how to hum

The drums 

The dusty carpets beat over the railings 

The boys bent out of their cars

Racing towards the conquering of bodies and countries 

The one black and white photograph with the deep set eyes and the lace edged hijab

Looking right at me

All that she could never be 

All that I am

Free. 

Do you remember? 

You must. 

The past demands it. 

The future depends on it.