Hedy Habra

Was Any Household Ever Devoid of Mercurochrome?

I loved hiking and climbing trees in the mountains. We’d discover new caves, marking
our names on their soft chalky walls, and gathered wild oregano’s swollen spikes covered
with tiny white flowers. My grandmother dried them to make homemade zaatar.

Nothing was more common than seeing our scraped knees and elbows reddened by
Mercurochrome. The little bottle had a small swab that mom brushed delicately on our
wounds and scratches. We preferred it to the stinging iodine tincture that burned like fire,
leaving an ugly yellow blemish. Mercurochrome’s red stains had a yellow-green sheen
and metallic hues that we associated with blood and heroic feats.

When I was two years old I spilled boiling water all over my face, and my third-degree
burns were treated for weeks with Mercurochrome. At the time, right after World War II,
the red solution had garnered a great reputation amongst veterans, or that’s what my
mother always said, telling everybody that I don’t have any scars on account of that
miraculous remedy.

An Iron Hand in a Velvet Glove

Think of your aunt who runs her household--main de fer dans
un gant de velours. Didn’t her husband take charge of the
laundry after suffering a few discolored shirts? And Cousin
Paul who still irons his shirts in his eighties? Why do you think
he only trusts himself? My mom would laugh about how she
first served overcooked beans to her husband. He’d say, don’t
worry, love, they won’t stay whole inside my belly, you know.
That’s how she got to be a great cook. Raising kids and
training a spouse are two sides of the same coin, or shouldn’t I
be saying these things in your extreme politically correct
times? But things are what they are.

Or What If You’d Enter this Thread with Your Own Perspective?

Some say a poem is a lost feather,

a melting snowflake,

or a slowing down of raindrops

piercing the pond’s surface

in concentric ripples.

Some even think unseen words

echo each other

through wafts of air flowing

within ever-changing clouds

and all we need is

wait in silence

to capture their vibrations.

But others might add that each

poem is a step towards death.

A presence that is an absence.

The promise of appearance

vs disappearance,

defying loneliness

Some see readers as voyeurs

who peek through lines

to decipher the meaning

hidden beneath ink strokes gliding

over fiber threads.

While the blank page awaits signs

to come to life, we struggle

to make that moment last,

keep recycling

the illusion of creating

as insidious drafts drift and swirl

like fumes fleeing

through half-opened doors

and windows in search

for a truce enabling us

to prepare for a fiercer battle.

Or What Did You Think Would Happen After You Were Gone?

After Kay Sage’s Catalogue Raisonné

There are times when even the sky feels like a ceiling preventing

flights from the mind

There are times when drapes attempt to escape the window frame

only to be pinned by an arrow aimed at a bird clothed in purple murex

There are times when sleeping on the deck of an abandoned wreck

isn’t the utmost homelessness

There are times when we need to listen to the language of fabrics

and strive to stay away from desolate gray

There are times when objects are taking over a landscape where

there is no one left to talk to

Hedy Habra has authored three poetry collections, most recently, The
Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019), finalist for the USA Best Book Award.
Tea in Heliopolis won the USA Best Book Award and Under Brushstrokes,
was finalist for the USA Best Book Award and the International Book
Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book
Award’s Honorable Mention and was finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. A
fourteen-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, her work
appears in numerous publications. Her website is hedyhabra.com