Today, these tears are tulips, gnashing ego petals
lured gold, all raining around brown eyes.
Also, but I am weaker
than you, because you were enslaved.
I cease. Flinch at the sight of trees,
or rivers, mountains whose shadows resemble my scarf. They can
do all that but not forgetting
they have done all that.
Attempted to read, I walked past
narrow streets, swirls of sounds: Hazzara men in their
gentle voice selling amber rings,
smell of chapli kebab, thinly sliced potatoes
fried in corn oil fumed the streets,
women held fresh bread and halva
in courtyard of women and children. Inviting
eaten by yellow light, I touched
the green fabric tied to tree’s branch,
a cloud floated behind the gray pillar hiding for a moment
hopefulness, I thought. In colorful improvised raindrops
falling to the ground, a woman asked,
my daughter, are you crying? Ashamed, I flew
taking custody of my spirit’s strange and subtle comfort.
Huma Aatifi is an adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College. She is a former Truman Capote fellow at Brooklyn College where she was a graduate student of poetry.
