THE WOUND
AIYAH SIBAY
Bruise these pages with stabs of loss. There is
no other way to tell this story. A girl
flees to Palestine, leaves her sick father
to a crazy woman, packs that blood—sucking
farm on Oxon Hill in a black bag and tosses
it to the side of Wheeler Road. As if pain
were barred from movement, as if it couldn't
unzip the bag into which it had been thrown,
take the form of the Arab boy
she would marry, carry his fists
into the air, and bring them down, swollen with sin.
Sure, that was pain emerging from the backpack,
taking the late bus to College Park
in the tilted figure of her father.
That was pain walking to the bagel place
where he had sat with her once
each week. There was her father, bent
over his pizza bagel, oil dripping
into the forest of his black beard, crying.
It's dangerous, isn't it? When a man cries and knows why,
when he can look to the chair beside him and see her there,
and she, in the white mountains of Nablus, can see him
with his fists and wanting gaze, with his goats and all their graves,
their tired baby ghosts hunting bare stones. He is there,
in the tight tidy of her lover, punching
the space beside her, crying and knowing exactly why.
When they made love, it was the savage chest of pain
pressing in horror against itself, pushing into the abyss of its brother.
It was everything. It was nothing. It was what she imagined
freedom to look like: she roaming the West Bank mountains,
her stepmama there with a gun, her father between them, one
hand resting on the shoulder of his wife, the other reaching for his
daughter's throat. There is no other way she wants it.
Her dad's fingers around her throat, and she smiling
at the kind fate that had come in such familiar hands.
no other way to tell this story. A girl
flees to Palestine, leaves her sick father
to a crazy woman, packs that blood—sucking
farm on Oxon Hill in a black bag and tosses
it to the side of Wheeler Road. As if pain
were barred from movement, as if it couldn't
unzip the bag into which it had been thrown,
take the form of the Arab boy
she would marry, carry his fists
into the air, and bring them down, swollen with sin.
Sure, that was pain emerging from the backpack,
taking the late bus to College Park
in the tilted figure of her father.
That was pain walking to the bagel place
where he had sat with her once
each week. There was her father, bent
over his pizza bagel, oil dripping
into the forest of his black beard, crying.
It's dangerous, isn't it? When a man cries and knows why,
when he can look to the chair beside him and see her there,
and she, in the white mountains of Nablus, can see him
with his fists and wanting gaze, with his goats and all their graves,
their tired baby ghosts hunting bare stones. He is there,
in the tight tidy of her lover, punching
the space beside her, crying and knowing exactly why.
When they made love, it was the savage chest of pain
pressing in horror against itself, pushing into the abyss of its brother.
It was everything. It was nothing. It was what she imagined
freedom to look like: she roaming the West Bank mountains,
her stepmama there with a gun, her father between them, one
hand resting on the shoulder of his wife, the other reaching for his
daughter's throat. There is no other way she wants it.
Her dad's fingers around her throat, and she smiling
at the kind fate that had come in such familiar hands.
MAGHREB
AIYAH SIBAY
Little child beggar
stands before a white-
stoned mosque, tugging
at the robes of men
who feel holy enough to give,
Three shit-covered, one-
legged pigeons pass by. She
tosses them the crumbs
of her bread, too young, still,
to feel the urge to kick them.
Some say it's the touch
of hell on this village that leaves
a dry hunger in the throats
of child beggars, the kind of goat-
like hunger that is always
wanting more,
wanting even the organs
of an orphan boy, wanting
his leg cut and the boy
trained to limp in sly horror,
bend that unwashed head
and say, War!
I lose this leg in war.
Another girl, her eye knifed
convincingly, the brow
above of it shaved
through the middle.
She knows what an American
looks like, knows how to
pull tears from the good eye,
whisper to the blond head,
I born like this, you see?
Her brother follows a truck
of oranges, follows it
through the morning traffic
until they toss him one.
It lands hard against the asphalt
.He runs after it, laughing
and screaming and telling
the cars to wait.
In this place where white
faces gather to clap for children
bending bodies for change,
twisting them in way they
should not be,these old child beggars
stand, sometimes asking,
sometimes taking,
their calloused hands slipping
quietly into pockets, while their mamas,
plump and bored, watch beneath
the foolish shade of bare branches
and Moroccan dust, carrying,again,
the tired sigh of a full womb.
stands before a white-
stoned mosque, tugging
at the robes of men
who feel holy enough to give,
Three shit-covered, one-
legged pigeons pass by. She
tosses them the crumbs
of her bread, too young, still,
to feel the urge to kick them.
Some say it's the touch
of hell on this village that leaves
a dry hunger in the throats
of child beggars, the kind of goat-
like hunger that is always
wanting more,
wanting even the organs
of an orphan boy, wanting
his leg cut and the boy
trained to limp in sly horror,
bend that unwashed head
and say, War!
I lose this leg in war.
Another girl, her eye knifed
convincingly, the brow
above of it shaved
through the middle.
She knows what an American
looks like, knows how to
pull tears from the good eye,
whisper to the blond head,
I born like this, you see?
Her brother follows a truck
of oranges, follows it
through the morning traffic
until they toss him one.
It lands hard against the asphalt
.He runs after it, laughing
and screaming and telling
the cars to wait.
In this place where white
faces gather to clap for children
bending bodies for change,
twisting them in way they
should not be,these old child beggars
stand, sometimes asking,
sometimes taking,
their calloused hands slipping
quietly into pockets, while their mamas,
plump and bored, watch beneath
the foolish shade of bare branches
and Moroccan dust, carrying,again,
the tired sigh of a full womb.
AIYAH SIBAY is a poet and artist originally from Syria. She graduated from University of Maryland and has worked for various publications, including The Writer's Bloc, Stories Beneath the Shell, and PublicAsian. She has also worked as a writer for the UN and the Middle Eastern publication, Barakabits, and as a columnist for The Diamondback. She was a Litfest finalist and a winner of the “Writing Migration Literary Competition” at the Forming Black Britain Symposium. She has worked with Syrian, Iraqi, and Palestinian refugees over the years and is currently residing in the West Bank where she teaches English and writes.