Safia Elhillo

i was born at the rupture the root where i split from my parallel self  i split from the girl i also could have been & her name / easy / i know the story all her life / my mother wanted a girl named for a flower whose oil scents all our mothers / petals wrung for their perfume i was planted land became ocean became land anew its shape refusing root in my fallow mouth cleaving my life neatly & my name / taken from a dead woman to remember / to fill an aperture with cut jasmine in a bowl our longing our mothers’ wilting garlands hanging from our necks

ninety-nine names for my god though i know none for my [     ] a failing not of my deity but of my arabic      not the language itself rather the overeager mosaic i hoard      i steal       i borrow from pop songs          & mine from childhood fluency    i guard my few swearwords like tinkling silver anklets     spare & precious & never nearly enough to muster a proper arabic anger      proper arabic vulgarity     only a passing spar always using the names of animals i am not polite         i am only inarticulate overproud      of my little arsenal a stranger blows a wet tobacco kiss through the window    of my taxi & i deploy     my meager weapons [dog]          [pig]         [donkey] & finally        my crown jewel i pass my tongue across my teeth crane my neck about the window & call        [your mother’s                  ]

i was mothered by lonely women       some of  them wives     some of them             with plumes of  smoke for husbands    all    lonely smelling of  onions & milk         all mothers some of them to children some to old names phantom girls acting out a life        only half a life away      instead        copper kitchenware bangles pushed up the arm    fingernails rusted with henna          kneading raw meat with salt with coriander                     sweating upper lip in the steam       weak tea          hair unwound against the nape         my deities      each one sandal slapping against stone heel      sandal- wood & oud                    bright chiffon spun about each head     coffee in the dowry china butter biscuits on a painted plate      crumbs suspended in eggshell demitasse       & they begin i heard       people are saying i saw it with my own eyes       [      ]’s daughter a scandal                  she was wearing [      ] &not wearing [   ]            can you imagine a shame                                             a shame

a girl     buried to the chest in red earth         her wrists bound beneath the soil with twine    a crowd gathers to father her                 its infinite hands      curved loosely around a stone                   small enough that no single throw   is named as cause of death           no single hand       accountable to the blood the girl   undaughter         unnamed unfaced         undone from the lineage her photographs               pulled already from bookshelf   from walls    her father among the hands             his pebble streaked with quartz      the first to rise to carve the air & arc     toward the girl the rootless tree          faceless & erect & perhaps the stones             twisting like fireworks                        the girl their nucleus                   rise    & rise for a time                  opposite of rain opposite of  hail & perhaps the silence a beat too long                       & another another                    & then a rustling of  wings                        above the girl a flock                   thick mixed cloud of avifauna          partridge & nightjar & golden sparrow                  & avocet & lapwing               & every other sort of  plover        & ibis & heron & gulls though the sea    is far & to the north & the minutes pass & the girl is untouched & each bird in its beak        tongues a stone • [what if  i will not die] [what          will govern me then] [how         to govern me then] [what bounty           then            on my name] [what stone       what rope              what man will be my officer]