YOUR INTERPRETER SENDS ME A HOUSEDRESS
When you
return to Iraq or Afghanistan
you are
given new clothes as gifts:
the long robe
made of goat fur that, even folded up,
is the
size of a small desk. The brown turban,
the rough
cotton tunic and pants.
We have
photos of you sipping chai in these clothes,
sitting
cross-legged in the sun. Your teeth shine
as you
laugh with the Iraqi interpreter
sitting
beside you, holding bread in one hand.
When you
leave he will be hunted by men
who come
down from the hills at night
in white
garments like stars crashing into Earth.
He will
send you messages that say, My brother
until he
is rescued by civilians
and sent
to San Diego to work as a valet.
On your
last day in Iraq he gives you a housedress
pressed
flat in a plastic envelope and says
it is a
gift for your wife: a woman who accepts gifts
from men other
than her husband because she can,
because
she does not know sending a dress to his wife
would be as
unforgiveable as touching her hair.
The dress
is meant to be worn indoors:
orange and
yellow with flashes of red,
the color
of so many explosions I’ve watched on the news:
balloons
of flame that float over mosques and markets.
At home,
in our dining room, I pull the dress on
even
though I am ashamed of its slim waist
and fussy
gold thread, the zebra lamé pattern
stretched
thin across my broad shoulders
and
barreled chest, the Virgin Mary languishing
on a tin
medallion under my throat.
I am too
tall, too wide and too plain for this dress,
too
impatient for its shimmering neckline
and narrow
sleeves. I feel like I am smothering it.
We hang it
on one of your good suit hangers
at the
back of our closet where it smolders
and gleams
between my wool sweaters and jeans,
throws sparks
of light into my shoes.
SITTING IN A SIMULATED LIVING SPACE AT THE SEATTLE IKEA
To sit in
the simulated living space at Ikea
is to know
what sand knows
as it
rests inside the oyster.
This is
how you might arrange your life
if you
were to start from scratch:
a newer,
better version of yourself applied
coat by
coat, beginning with lamplight
from the
simulated living room.
The man
who lives here has never killed.
There is
no American camouflage drying
over the
backs of his kitchen chairs,
no battle
studies on the coffee table.
He travels
without a weapon,
hangs
photographs of the Taj Mahal,
the Eiffel
Tower above the sofa.
The woman
who lives here has no need
for
prescriptions or self-help,
her mirror
cabinet holds a pump
for lotion
and a rose-colored water glass,
her nightstand
is stacked with hardcovers
on Swedish
architecture.
The cat
who lives here has been declawed,
the dog
rehomed. There are no parakeets
shrilling
over newspaper in the decorative cage,
no parking
tickets in the breadbox.
When you
finish your dollar coffee
and exit
through the simulated front door,
join other
shoppers with chapsticks
in their
purses and Kleenex and receipts,
with
t-shirts that say Florida Keys 2003
and
unopened Nicorette in their pockets,
you wish
you could say this place
is not enough
for you, that you’re better off
in the
harsh light of the parking garage,
a light
that shows your skin beneath your skin,
the color
of your past self,
pale in
places, flushed in others.
WRITE YOUR POEM:
"We hang it on one of your good suit hangers
at the back of our closet where it smolders"
Object + Description = Story Ballad
Ballads used to be a poetic form that told stories.
Now we associate them music.
Abby's housedress weaves in and out and we
experience the all the characters and conflict.
What can you describe with a poetic form, and
leave the reader with a narrative?
Deconstruct a cereal box. Write you poem on the blank side.
Glue the box back together!
