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An Uprising 

 

One 

 

My father arrived from his only tour      of Iraq and now he is

showing off scars to anyone standing outside I watch 

his tongue keep spending all its strange speaking on nomadic 

thoughts all of them furloughed or impossible 

to follow even now he’s                   demanding 

a new war with his dark noise and we’re deep 

in his thrall all of us always 

 

when there are children around my father smiles 

at them working          the dimple back in his cheek until his face 

is restless holes sometimes 

the muscular work of pretending leaves open nerve

 

he is         not           going back and meanwhile he’s pacing 

his history criticizing the street in his magnificent disobedient language 

his self occurring 

at random 

as souvenirs he liked for an instant       he is always adding 

some velocity to the erratic by throwing 

an accent over syllábles running over the ending the revolution 

of making the world unfamiliar          and sends his notes with extra swirls 

 

Two

 

His boyhood picture the black hair the deep 

drooping eyes he’s fighting                for something    he’s loaded

with here or elsewhere he moves past the corner 

of the market the market not the one 

that trailed the Tigris his gaze is impossible doesn’t he know 

he is in the American city with black clouds 

doesn’t he see he is getting old without his real name with the illusion

of an ambivalent 

reproduction     offspring    he is standing 

by the market and the water skins and bends

beside him in the shadows of two moons but he’s not paying attention he never

does 

 

he is watching results of the shadows what if 

a troupe of belly dancers came by hurling 

their flesh canticles with the high notes of their hips          for a minute 

my father’s vehemence would become unreliable and his eyes would work

electronically       then he’d be back reprising his every

opportunity for attention pulling out

all the numbers he’s kept on small scraps of paper final tallies the stock 

market swagger for all the weeks of the endless last years        he is adorned 

with numbers and facts

of loss 

 

Three

 

The whole time he is bending and arranging his bald head is wide to the sun 

he is systematic side by side papers prove boisterous 

growth and dark curves        later his voice will still 

be too big 

and I will find this awful the fragments of what he sees of the city 

around us the city he sees an alley the city

is a skeleton and where he has hurdled the ribs         the city a carcass the city

now beheadings or now breasts cut from women his relatives shot and he’s ready 

to squat down again to straighten his private investments 

that are too much are growing 

into the sidewalk stomped by small sneakers              never

never never never and he has been away to that place that never 

 

opened the center of the clamoring the animals the damage

where the river gave temporary fluctuations and he is a lot better 

and worse and remember 

this is as much as possible for the 64 years since Iraq 

to use his whole life as reference and it is too much

to never again see the brick or the dishdasha the abayah his sabta to kneel by the rings 

of the river and be a survivor

and what he is now is always disappointed always ruined