Light my face and light the flesh of my flesh, Light each my eyes and light inside my sight, Light the light that makes me light in the bones, And in my hands, light, and in my loins, light,
And light your light before and behind me, Above and beneath me, light to my right And light to left, light to my enemies Who in the moral dark will use my light
Against me, light the dull swords of my ribs, The thick fist within, light the blood-hot rooms Pulsing there, light the gates when they swing wide To the stranger, light more light on my tongue,
In the light, light more light, in the black, light, and when it’s time to snuff this wick—light that light.
I had trouble choosing just one poem to share with you from Threa Almontaser’s devastating and brilliant collection, The Wild Fox of Yemen, published just a few weeks ago. Described as “A love letter to the country and people of Yemen, a portrait of young Muslim womanhood in New York after 9/11, and an extraordinarily composed examination of what it means to carry in the body the echoes of what came before,” this collection by the Yemini American author is definitely one you should purchase or urge your local library to order.
Light falls from her voice and I try to catch it as the last light of the day fades … But there is no form to touch, no pain to trace.
2
Are dreams taking their seats on the night train?
3
She recites a list of wishes to keep him from dying.
4
The truth lands like a kiss— sometimes like a mosquito, sometimes like a lantern.
5
Your coffee-colored skin awakens me to the world.
6
We have only one minute and I love you.
7
All children are poets until they quit the habit of reaching for butterflies that are not there.
8
The moment you thought you lost me, you saw me clearly with all of my flowers, even the dried ones.
9
If you pronounce all letters and vowels at once, you would hear their names falling drop by drop with the rain.
10
We carved our ancestral trees into boats. The boats sailed into harbors that looked safe from afar.
11
Trees talk to each other like old friends and don’t like to be interrupted. They follow anyone who cuts one of them, turning that person into a lonely cut branch. Is this why in Arabic we say “cut of a tree” when we mean “having no one”?
12
The way roots hide under trees— there are secrets, faces, and wind behind the colors in Rothko’s untitled canvases.
13
Will the sea forget its waves, as caves forgot us?
14
Back when there was no language they walked until sunset carrying red leaves like words to remember.
15
It’s true that pain is like air, available everywhere, but we each feel our pain hurts the most.
16
So many of them died under stars that don’t know their names.
17
If she just survived with me.
18
A flame dims in the fireplace, a day slips quietly away from the calendar, and Fairuz sings, “They say love kills time, and they also say time kills love.”
19
The street vendor offers tourists necklaces with divided hearts, seashells to murmur the sea’s secrets in your ear, squishy balls to make you feel better, maps of homelands you fold in your pocket as you go on your way.
20
I am haunted by the melody of a forgotten song sung while two hands tied my shoelaces into a ribbon and waved me goodbye to school.
21
If I could photocopy the moment we met I would find it full of all the days and nights.
22
It won’t forget the faraway child, that city whose door stayed open for passersby, tourists, and invaders.
23
The moon is going to the other side of the world to call my loved ones.
24
The seasons change colors and you come and go. What color is your departure?