<Poetry break>

November/December 2006

Poetry

by Suheir Hammad
break

(nyc)
the humidity condenses breath
bodies stick and stones gather in a lower
back
gray thick moving slow and alone
i am looking for my body
for my form in the foreign
in translation
what am i trying
to say i sit in this body dream
in this body expel
in this body inherit
in this body
here is the poem
i left a long time ago
remember stubble remember
unwanted remember touch
i can’t remember where i left my
body
poem needs form lungs need
air memory needs loss i need
to translate my body because it
is profane
what had happened was
i wrote myself out of damage
this is the body of words and
spaces
i have found to re-construct

(deheisha)
my home
girl is there now the air is thick
people don’t breathe well hold their
tongues against cursing all of existence
all that would carry on living during this
she wakes to news just the beginning
the same story the one which leaves
bodies
behind as tokens of nothing
one family
roasting corn
now all husks
silk
spraying
wind
my home girl’s body
would be called white be claimed jewish
is mother and loved by a man who sits
in a bay
by telephone and radio and reaches for
his lover’s body
and finds only formless
she is witness and rage
i pray her body save her
come back with her offer lover a home
daughter a beginning and all of us testimony
the people there tell her they will survive
this
if a body can carry through you follow

(beirut)
a green body obsessed white
possessed by all male religion sword
sniper garnishes silicone
radishes video radiology vixens eastern
european prostitution manic
depression olive oil sweat camps resorts
hair gel all that is life
all that is death
the roads and bridges been hit
the airport been hit
where is a body to go
we lived there once my parents sisters
and me
i left my skin there still boiling

Iraq Hospital, May 2001

(tel aviv)
write your own damn poem
build a grammar with something other
than bones

(gaza)
a woman’s hand cups bloodied sand bits
scalp ooze
to the camera and says this is my family

(khan younis)
yamaaaaaaaaa
yamaaaaa

(nyc)
i am waiting for a break
in weather
i am not yet broken
enough to forget
desire but i wish i would
my parents worry i will never marry
i cannot comfort them

(houston)
a family says this is the summer of sacrifice
no vacation no new car no addition to
the study
but pedicures and hair relaxing and
shape-ups and gyms
mandatory a body must keep up must
be presentable
a husband says i wake up and sleep and
wake up
and all i think about is gas prices

(bombay)
bomb bay bomb bay bomb bay bomb bay

(exactly brooklyn)
my niece sleeps light
my sister feeds her her body
my clan holds one breath

(new orleans)
there is no wading in this water
a body can be polluted inside
and out

(baghdad)
the children watch from bodies
roasting by roadsides
they fall in love with the soldiers
killing them
they see soldiers are bodies with
orders
they wish for something to follow
a star an idea called hope sick as it
sounds

(here)
is my body
is my body
an offering to give or to receive
wait for storm
know that even this is not it
that when it comes
break will be fire baptism
and in the ashes there
is my body

Suheir Hammad is a Palestinian-American poet and artist. Born in Jordan to refugee parents, she lives in Brooklyn, New York and in Gaza, Palestine. Visit www.suheirhammad.com.