Read an Excerpt

Art

Art is our reparation for love and wisdom,
loss and prospect,
the same art that has destroyed
its makers’ minds and fingertips
created everything else in our stead
and left us hungry.
Art that teaches us pain
leaves a mark, but happiness
courses ordinary.
Art that turned orphanhood into a sign
and darkness into a road,
listen to me: I’m aware that all sorts
of machines roll over you,
all kinds of wires above and below ground,
pipes and conduits, arterial
technologies that deprive you of air.
But don’t leave us
even if we leave you,
don’t turn away your face.
We’ve behaved like this before,
abandoned life and received you,
and nothing happened.
You enlivened us,
became our ally in war and exile,
our partner on warm and cold nights
when we were made lonely
or made others lonely.
So don’t do it,
whether our voices ebb or flow
on your tenacious modesty,
don’t feel ashamed of your beauty
and don’t abandon us to monstrosity.
Everything else returns us
to our high cliffs
where life in its maximum elegance
is stretched out between us and death.
Only you can lie
as you tell the truth
and make it possible.

***

My Laugh

I’m exhausted from smuggling my laugh out of my psychology,
smuggling my laugh out of the fates of those I love,
out of videos of slaughtered children
and children who will be kidnapped
from their magical smiles tomorrow,
exhausted from smuggling my laugh
out of sins, ugly secrets,
and in ripped stockings: my jarring laugh
that breaks my ribs
and gashes
public decency.

***

Since They Told Me My Love Won’t Be Coming Back from the War

I tried everything:
God, for example,
I leaned on his chest and prayed,
and on that rug, once and for all,
I learned that my love
won’t come back, and that if he did
won’t recognize me.

I tried my hand at politics,
memorized patriotic songs,
befriended legislators,
adored warriors,
but seasonal and moody
they changed their faces
as they do their speeches
once they got close to my pockets.
And then I knew that my love
won’t know me even if he returns.

Since they told me my love
won’t be coming back from the war,
I’ve been writing our children’s names
on clouds and in journals,
documenting their birthdays,
shoe sizes, the poems they recite,
and once and for all,
I learned that all of them
won’t be coming back from the war,
and neither will I.

***

Elegy for the Desire of Mothers

As I make my bed and my two kids’ beds,
I’ll remember. As I wipe one’s vomit off the floor,
open a window to the dust on the road,
trim rose thorns in a pot that doesn’t bud,
and as I read a recipe for authentic mansaf,
mend a white gown that little fingers
have ripped holes through,
I’ll remember. As I balance winter’s budget,
sniff a quilt for ammonia,
flip through the six children channels
looking for Tom and Jerry per request,
and as I search in my supermarket of a purse
for a stray pad, I’ll remember.
As I bathe a body the size of my palm,
remove green boogers from tender nostrils,
untangle hair that chocolate, lollipop,
and apricot jam have invaded,
and as I read stories about vibrant ants, lazy lions,
and migrant seals, degum my heart
and the sole of my shoe,
search for the best method
to remove oil stains from fabric,
clip twenty nails after a long quest for clippers,
I’ll remember. When a child touches me
innocently in places that no longer work,
when the faucet sprays me, and Turkish soap
operas declare me their number-one fan.
When two hands pinch me under the table
in a restaurant. And when I mine
my friends’ stories for living desires,
I’ll remember to mention them all,
mothers with jaundiced eyes
spilling before me whole,
their dazzling thighs
that defile the house, their fleeting anger
in certain times of the month,
their excessive anxiety over the phone bill,
their belly cramps of endless bloating,
and their interpretation of dreams
for little ridiculous devils,
their coffee cups for fortune-telling,
their song of a blue skirt and a broad knee,
lips that ooze from self-biting,
large bras to safekeep coins and bills,
forgotten aprons over plump guts,
and the nonstop anecdotes
about the licentious girls next door,
mothers
with cut braids
and clay henna on both sides of a face,
and dead desires.