Sharif - Look: poems

It matters what you call a thing: Exquisite a lover called me. Exquisite . Whereas Well, if I were from your culture, living in this country , said the man outside the 2004 Republican National Convention, I would put up with that for this country; Whereas I felt the need to clarify: You would put up with TORTURE , you mean and he proclaimed: Yes; Whereas what is your life; Whereas years after they LOOK down from their jets and declare my mothers Abadan block PROBABLY DESTROYED , we walked by the villas, the faces of buildings torn off into dioramas, and recorded it on a handheld camcorder; Whereas it could take as long as 16 seconds between the trigger pulled in Las Vegas and the Hellfire missile landing in Mazar-e-Sharif, after which they will ask Did we hit a child? No. A dog . they will answer themselves; Whereas the federal judge at the sentencing hearing said I want to make sure I pronounce the defendants name correctly; Whereas this lover would pronounce my name and call me Exquisite and lay the floor lamp across the floor, softening even the light; Whereas the lover made my heat rise, rise so that if heat sensors were trained on me, they could read my THERMAL SHADOW through the roof and through the wardrobe; Whereas you know we ran into like groups like mass executions. and everybody shot in the head side by side. its not like seeing a dead body walking to the grocery store here. its not like that. its iraq you know its iraq. its kinda like acceptable to see that there and notit was kinda like seeing a dead dog or a dead cat lying; Whereas I thought if he would LOOK at my exquisite face or my fathers, he would reconsider; Whereas You mean I should be disappeared because of my family name? and he answered Yes. its kinda like acceptable to see that there and notit was kinda like seeing a dead dog or a dead cat lying; Whereas I thought if he would LOOK at my exquisite face or my fathers, he would reconsider; Whereas You mean I should be disappeared because of my family name? and he answered Yes.

Thats exactly what I mean , adding that his wife helped draft the PATRIOT Act; Whereas the federal judge wanted to be sure he was pronouncing the defendants name correctly and said he had read all the exhibits, which included the letter I wrote to cast the defendant in a loving light; Whereas today we celebrate things like his transfer to a detention center closer to home; Whereas his son has moved across the country; Whereas I made nothing happen; Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a THERMAL SHADOW , it appears so little, and then vanishes from the screen; Whereas I cannot control my own heat and it can take as long as 16 seconds between the trigger, the Hellfire missile, and A dog . they will answer themselves; Whereas A dog . they will say: Now, therefore, Let it matter what we call a thing. Let it be the exquisite face for at least 16 seconds. Let me LOOK at you.

Let me LOOK at you in a light that takes years to get here.

During the war, we felt the silence in the policy of the governments of English-speaking countries. That policy was to win the war first, and work out the meanings afterward. The result was, of course, that the meanings were lost. MURIEL RUKEYSER SANCTUARY where we dont have to SANITIZE hands or words or knives, dont have to use a SCALE each morning, worried we take up too much space. I SCAN my memory of baba talking on SCREEN answering a question (how are you?) I would ask and ask from behind the camera, his face changing with each repetition as he tried to watch the football game.

He doesnt know this is the beginning of my SCRIBING life: repetition and change. A human face at the seaport and a home growing smaller. Lets SEARCH my fathers profile: moustache black and holding back a SECRET he still hasnt told me, SECTION of the couch thats fallen a bit from his repeated weight, SECTOR of the government designed to keep him from flying. He kept our house SECURE except from the little bugs that come with dried herbs from Iran. He gives SECURITY officers a reason to get of their chairs. My father is not afraid of SEDITION .

He can SEIZE a wild pigeon of a Santa Monica street or watch SEIZURES unfold in his sisters bedroomthe FBI storming through. He said use wood sticks to hold up your protest signs then use them in SELF-DEFENSE when the horses come , his eyes SENSITIVE when he passes advice to me, like Im his SEQUEL , like were all a SERIAL caught on Iranian satellite TV. When you tell someone of, he calls it SERVICING . When I stand on his feet, I call it SHADOWING . He naps in the afternoon and wakes with SHEETLINES on his face, his hair upright, the sound of SHELLS ( SPECIFY )the sound of mussel shells on the lip of the Bosphorus crunching beneath his feet. Hes given me SHELTER and SHIELDING , shown its better to travel away from the SHOAL .