Ode to Eve
I still recall the last time I spoke to an alien, or perhaps merely imagined it to be so. It happened immediately after the first drops of blood—later known as menstruation—appeared. I curled up in a corner, watching the wall where it walked in transparent attire, playing cards next to a widow spider. I don’t know if it was truly a widow, but perhaps my mood at the time made me assume it.
From that moment, I imagined Eve dreaming of the respectable apple. Imagined her exhausted, suffering the cycle. Imagined her startled by the fact of her femaleness. I saw her in my mind attempting to flee the obsessive-compulsive disorder, the doubt, and the petty anxieties. Imagining herself pregnant, her belly immense, and her legs swollen from fluid retention. I pictured her with one eye open and one eye closed, like a resting wolf.
Then the alien suddenly stung me; I opened my eyes and found it wearing Adam’s mask, recounting the familiar story from the perspective of the victim who fell into the trap of temptation.
No Bigger Than a Chickpea
Do you remember?
When I knelt before you, crying?
When you smiled at me and explained
Why did a piece of my body have to be cut off?
Do you remember?
You said,
“You won’t feel a thing.
It’s no bigger than a chickpea.”
My mother was boiling mint leaves.
I swear I felt the pot weeping.
Every leaf of mint seemed to ache,
As if preparing for a funeral.
You wore a loose, colorful galabiya.
You were laughing,
Genuinely happy, waiting for the line of girls—
So you could circumcise them.
It was the first time I heard the word.
I thought it was something
Like trimming your nails.
And I thought
You were like the school nurse.
We were laughing so hard,
Chasing one another,
Waiting for our turn.
The mother of each girl
Whispered to her:
“Once they cut that piece from you,
You’ll be a good girl.”
Do you remember?
Do you remember how all the girls begged you
When you pulled out the blade?
We thought it was a joke.
We thought it was a game.
But we never knew
We were part of it.
What the Palm Reader Told Me
A palm reader tells me I’ll end up working as a clown.
She says it with a wide smile shaped like a swordfish.
“You’ll live until sixty,” she says.
“And on the day you retire, you’ll take off your shoes in the street and run in the opposite direction of the traffic light.
That’s when you’ll start speaking Chinese—
The language you always dreamed of learning one day.
You’ll say xiè xiè—thank you so very much—
To everyone you meet.
It won’t bother you that the street vendor replies,
‘You’re welcome, Grandma.’
You know he has no manners.
And even though you used to get upset every time he said it,
This time you’ll run—run fast—all the way to the end of the road,
Like a child, like a nightingale eager to sing,
Happy with her voice and showing off a little.
The city’s chaos won’t annoy you then.
Nor the pollution,
Nor the skyscrapers,
Nor the smell of antidepressants.
You won’t think about how many times your father kissed you on his deathbed,
When he closed your eyes with a smile
And you thought he was playing.
You’ll just keep running and running
Until you bump into the throne of the Divine.
And you’ll reach out your hand,
Take a violet rose from it,
Plant it in the hollow of your chest,
And begin again.
A Thumb-Sized Sinbad under My Armpit
Beneath my armpit lives a Sinbad the size of a thumb.
His imagination feeds through an umbilical cord tied to my womb.
Now and then, people hear him speaking through a giant microphone—
Singing,
Cracking jokes,
Laughing like mad,
And impersonating a lonely banana suddenly abandoned by its peel.
The men of our town have no idea I carry a Sinbad inside me.
They say, “A woman—formed from a crooked rib.”
They say, “A woman—waiting for Prince Charming.”
But Sinbad stirs within me like a fetus,
Restless, chasing after adventure.
My aunt pinches my knee
For slipping into daydreams.
The good girls say yes.
But what about no?
What about what Sinbad tells me every night?
No one knows.
No one cares.
.
Thus Spoke the Orange Tree
Yesterday I met an orange tree and asked it, “Tell me, how we fold Time?”
To be born now, a thousand years old. To know how to understand man, beast, bird, insect, flower, and machine. How to walk naked on my tiptoes in a wintry open space, without fearing the cold. To sing at the top of my lungs because (am still breathing)
Without fearing the sirens or the police.
Yesterday I met a pregnant orange tree and whispered in her acrobatic ear, “How do you become an orange tree, then give birth to a moon? How do the jokes melt in your mouth like water with honey? Did you fall for an angel? Or did you read a poem of light? Do you wear crystal balls like cosmic spectacles?”
Yesterday I shed my skin, bone, and flesh like a temporary coat I no longer needed. Yesterday I broke free of it. Broke free of me. And raced at full speed to catch a star that accidentally fell from a baby’s eye. I called out to myself with a thousand foreign tongues, and I prayed. And I sighed. And melted, once more, into the drink of Love.
First Class Donkey
Yesterday I sat next to a donkey
in first class.
His eyes were pearls,
his heart a green stone.
When I slipped my hand out
from under the seat belt
to hold him,
a piece of the full moon
fell into my lap.
I froze. The old stammer
from fifth grade came back.
My father’s voice in my ear:
You’re still shy? It’s a donkey.
But I wanted to hold him
even more.
His heart buzzed
like a bee—
maybe he could fly,
maybe speak,
like the ones in Orwell’s farm.
His eyes: a fountain of hope.
Could a gaze swallow me whole?
Could he pull me
toward him, inch by inch,
until my body vanishes—
no one finding me,
no one seeing me
except him?
And the flight attendant?
Would she report me missing?
Or swear I was never there?
The donkey holds a newspaper
with a hole in it.
I wonder:
old-fashioned donkey?
I lean closer, resisting the urge
to hug him.
His gentle eyes tempt me.
Closer—
I’m already there,
inside the hole,
second from the right
on the obituary page.
I’m there, dreaming.
