My godson wanted to go look at fish but I told him, today, beauty is canceled. We cried. I felt bad. I counted the unbeautiful like broken ribs. Shrapnel in the olive tree. Child-sized tourniquet. Saint Porphyrius’ watching and weeping. My father phones to tell me they’re down to vinegar; they pour into open wounds. His friend found some wild tomatoes. Cooked them in the street for his children. Over there, it’s a god-lent shovel. A murmur in water. The dark between angels is still time spent waiting for light. My father finds the photo albums. To remember the streets that once existed. My godson has not stopped describing his desire for fish. Their bodies are neon and possible. The water is full of his daydreams. I scavenge his tiny wants. And after, I dream of the hospital. Ice cream trucks filled with bodies. A friend dies on that blacktop like a fish. So few people will name him. I said today I am choosing the space between angels. There is nothing left to choose. I sew beauty between layers of skin. It seeps out without my noticing. When I see it I get angry because how dare life go on? My godson phones to say the fish are possible. We are possible. The sky is full of broken windows and so is the dream. My eye sees the way the past lurches forward, covering ground like we cover old scars. It says what the fish say: witness me.
Added: Friday, August 2, 2024 / Used with permission. This poem published through the Poem of the Week Series is part of the Poetry Coalition's 2024 slate of programs in the spring and summer that reflect the transformative impact poetry has on individual readers and communities across the nation, and is made possible in part by the Academy of American Poets with support from the Mellon Foundation.
A.D. Lauren-Abunassar is a Palestinian-American writer, poet, and journalist. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Narrative, Rattle, Boulevard, and elsewhere. Her first book, Coriolis, was winner of the 2023 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize.
Image Descripton:A.D. Lauren-Abunassar sits on a couch with a white painted brick wall in the background. She tilts her head slightly to the right and looks into the camera. She wears a black button-up collared shirt with two silver pendants with hair pulled back. In the background are yellow and white throw pillows and a wooden shelf with a plant on it.
