Arab-American Poetry, Post 9/11

“First Writing Since”

(Poem on Crisis of Terror)

by Suheir Hammad
New York, New York

1. there have been no words.
   i have not written one word.
   no poetry in the ashes south of canal street.
   no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna.
   not one word.
   
   today is a week, and seven is of heavens, gods, science.
   evident out my kitchen window is an abstract reality.
   sky where once was steel.
   smoke where once was flesh.
   
   fire in the city air and i feared for my sister's life in a way never
   before. and then, and now, i fear for the rest of us.
   
   first, please god, let it be a mistake, the pilot's heart failed, the
   plane's engine died.
   then please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now.
   please god, after the second plane, please, don't let it be anyone
   who looks like my brothers.
   
   i do not know how bad a life has to break in order to kill.
   i have never been so hungry that i willed hunger
   i have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen.
   not really.
   even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human being.
   never this broken.
   
   more than ever, i believe there is no difference.
   the most privileged nation, most americans do not know the difference
   between indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims, sikhs, hindus.
   more than ever, there is no difference.

2. thank you korea for kimchi and bibim bob, and corn tea and the
   genteel smiles of the wait staff at wonjo the smiles never revealing
   the heat of the food or how tired they must be working long midtown
   shifts. thank you korea, for the belly craving that brought me into
   the city late the night before and diverted my daily train ride into
   the world trade center.
   
   there are plenty of thank yous in ny right now. thank you for my
   lazy procrastinating late ass. thank you to the germs that had me
   call in sick. thank you, my attitude, you had me fired the week
   before. thank you for the train that never came, the rude nyer who
   stole my cab going downtown. thank you for the sense my mama gave me
   to run. thank you for my legs, my eyes, my life.
   
   3. the dead are called lost and their families hold up shaky
   printouts in front of us through screens smoked up.
   
   we are looking for iris, mother of three. please call with any
   information. we are searching for priti, last seen on the 103rd
   floor. she was talking to her husband on the phone and the line
   went. please help us find george, also known as a! ! del. his family is
   waiting for him with his favorite meal. i am looking for my son, who
   was delivering coffee. i am looking for my sister girl, she started
   her job on monday.
   
   i am looking for peace. i am looking for mercy. i am looking for
   evidence of compassion. any evidence of life. i am looking for
   life.
   
   4. ricardo on the radio said in his accent thick as yuca, "i will
   feel so much better when the first bombs drop over there. and my
   friends feel the same way."
   
   on my block, a woman was crying in a car parked and stranded in hurt.
   i offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she said,
   "we"re gonna burn them so bad, i swear, so bad." my hand went to my
   head and my head went to the numbers within it of the dead iraqi
   children, the dead in nicaragua. the dead in rwanda who had to vie
   with fake sport wrestling for america's attention.
   
   yet when people sent emails saying, this was bound to happen, lets
   ! ! not forget u.s. transgressions, for half a second i felt resentful.
   hold up with that, cause i live here, these are my friends and fam,
   and it could have been me in those buildings, and we"re not bad
   people, do not support america's bullying. can i just have a half
   second to feel bad?
   
   if i can find through this exhaust people who were left behind to
   mourn and to resist mass murder, i might be alright.
   
   thank you to the woman who saw me brinking my cool and blinking back
   tears. she opened her arms before she asked "do you want a hug?" a
   big white woman, and her embrace was the kind only people with the
   warmth of flesh can offer. i wasn't about to say no to any comfort.
   "my brother's in the navy," i said. "and we"re arabs". "wow, you
   got double trouble." word.
   
   5. one more person ask me if i knew the hijackers.
   one more motherfucker ask me what navy my brother is in.
   one more person assume no arabs or muslims were killed.one more person
   assume they know me, or that i represent a people.
   or that a people represent an evil. or that evil is as simple as a
   flag and words on a page.
   
   we did not vilify all white men when mcveigh bombed oklahoma.
   america did not give out his family's addresses or where he went to
   church. or blame the bible or pat robertson.
   
   and when the networks air footage of palestinians dancing in the
   street, there is no apology that hungry children are bribed with
   sweets that turn their teeth brown. that correspondents edit images.
   that archives are there to facilitate lazy and inaccurate
   journalism.
   
   and when we talk about holy books and hooded men and death, why do we
   never mention the kkk?
   
   if there are any people on earth who understand how new york is
   feeling right now, they are in the west bank and the gaza strip.
   
   6. today it is ten days. last night bush waged war on a man once
   openly funded by the
   cia. i do not know who is responsible. read too many books, know
   too many people to believe what i am told. i don't give a fuck about
   bin laden. his vision of the world does not include me or those i
   love. and petittions have been going around for years trying to get
   the u.s. sponsored taliban out of power. shit is complicated, and i
   don't know what to think.
   
   but i know for sure who will pay.
   
   in the world, it will be women, mostly colored and poor. women will
   have to bury children, and support themselves through grief. "either
   you are with us, or with the terrorists" - meaning keep your people
   under control and your resistance censored. meaning we got the loot
   and the nukes.
   
   in america, it will be those amongst us who refuse blanket attacks on
   the shivering. those of us who work toward social justice, in
   support of civil liberties, in opposition to hateful foreign
   policies.
   
   i have never felt less american and more new yorker, particularly
   brooklyn, than these past days. the stars and stripes on all these
   cars and apartment windows represent the dead as citizens first, not
   family members, not lovers.
   
   i feel like my skin is real thin, and that my eyes are only going to
   get darker. the future holds little light.
   
   my baby brother is a man now, and on alert, and praying five times a
   day that the orders he will take in a few days time are righteous and
   will not weigh his soul down from the afterlife he deserves.
   
   both my brothers - my heart stops when i try to pray - not a beat to
   disturb my fear. one a rock god, the other a sergeant, and both
   palestinian, practicing muslim, gentle men. both born in brooklyn
   and their faces are of the archetypal arab man, all eyelashes and
   nose and beautiful color and stubborn hair.
   
   what will their lives be like now?
   
   over there is over here.
   
   7. all day, across the river, the smell of burning rubber and limbs
   floats through. the sirens have stopped now. the advertisers are
   back on the air. the rescue workers are traumatized. the skyline is
   brought back to human size. no longer taunting the gods with its
   height.
   
   i have not cried at all while writing this. i cried when i saw those
   buildings collapse on themselves like a broken heart. i have never
   owned pain that needs to spread like that. and i cry daily that my
   brothers return to our mother safe and whole.
   
   there is no poetry in this. there are causes and effects. there are
   symbols and ideologies. mad conspiracy here, and information we will
   never know. there is death here, and there are promises of more.
   
   there is life here. anyone reading this is breathing, maybe hurting,
   but breathing for sure. and if there is any light to come, it will
   shine from the eyes of those who look for peace and justice after the
   rubble and rhetoric are cleared and the phoenix has risen.
   
   affirm life.
   affirm life.
   we got to carry each other now.
   you are either with life, or against it.
   affirm life.

Published in In Motion Magazine November 7, 2001.