Other Words for Home: Parts One–Two

Her dark curls aren’t on display anymore,
tumbling to her shoulders
in unruly waves that remind me of laughter.

We have decided that Fatima has Sandra Bullock’s
dark eyes that are so expressive you could tell
if she was laughing
even if her mouth was covered.

I follow his eyes to the other side of the beach
where there are plush white chairs
shaded by white-and-blue-striped canopies.

Now he knows other words like
revolution
democracy
and change, change, change.

He calls them treasonous and
Issa says that it is our president
Bashar al-Assad
who is treasonous,
who is oppressing his own people.

He calls them treasonous and
Issa says that it is our president
Bashar al-Assad
who is treasonous,
who is oppressing his own people.

Issa shouts at Baba about free elections
and real democracy
and unlawful use of force
and Baba shouts about stability
and safety and then stability again.

She was being posh,
which is an English word she taught me.

Yes, Fatima said loudly back to her
in English,
even though Fatima’s accent is not as good as mine.

Baba gave us a warning glance
from behind the counter,
and we all slunk further down the aisle,
hiding behind the Kit Kats and the M&M’s.

Fatima and I had never been to that movie theater
or any movie theater and
we tried to pretend not to be stunned by the
soft red velvet seats that are so dense you can make
a handprint in the fabric
or the wide flat white screen
that is larger than anything
I’d ever seen.

They talked so fast and I spent most of the time
trying to keep up with the subtitles that rolled across
the bottom of the screen.

She has set out large chunks of feta
and slightly toasted pitas.

Life is good.
We should not tempt fate,
Mama says.
Life is not good for everyone.

I am trying to eat it slowly,
to savor it.

The front page is filled with awful pictures of
people who are
bloodied and cowering together in their city,
which has been torn apart by war.

Those men who spill blood and manipulate the Quran
to say
things that the rest of us know it does not say.

The whole kitchen fills with the earthy scent of herbs.

When you walk around town,
you had better show deference to our president—
to his large picture that is in almost every shop,
and the armed guards that are now on every corner.

I ask every day if I can visit my brother,
and every day the answer is no,
until one day when my mama says
yes and she walks with me the seven blocks across town
to his new apartment, which is near the local university
and all of the cafés that Baba thinks are full of radicals.

His new apartment is covered with a tapestry of
mismatched rugs;
a scratched coffee table sits low to the ground
and it is covered with stacks of newspapers that have
been marked up with a pen.

Names have been circled, crossed out, and amended.

It feels like some sort of promise,
an assurance that he won’t leave me
all alone.

It sounds like terror,
like primal relief.

There is an Arabic proverb that says:
The offspring of ducks float.

I see Issa’s smile falter a little
and somehow this makes me happy,
a little.

The man beckons for us to step up closer.

He studies each one as though it were a precious
artifact
and every organ in my body holds its breath
as I watch him make up his
mind about us.

She looks like an American movie star, too.
Honey blond hair,
big light eyes,
casual elegance.

That is something powerful enough to transcend
oceans:
a mama’s ability to say something
without actually saying it.

Aunt Michelle charges ahead,
Mama and me are sandwiched in the middle,
and Sarah walks slowly behind us,
sulking a little.

When I say this to Mama
she scoffs and tells me our town is
not that small
but when she doesn’t know I’m looking,
I see her eyes fill with wonder as she takes in
the cold, air-conditioned stores,
each one bigger
fancier
than the last.

We eat sandwiches on baguette bread—

Back home,
food was
rice
lamb
fish
hummus
pita bread
olives
feta cheese
za’atar with olive oil.

I watch the lightning
streak
and the thunder
boom
from the window on the third floor.