The Stranger | Joy

The Stranger

“Where’s your ma?” I said. “Haven’t you got one?”

“She’s out yonder in the wagon.”

—William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

The source of love opened

And a lily emerged.

Then the lily closed.

The source opened again

And a narcissus emerged.

Then the narcissus closed.

The source opened once more

And a scar emerged.

The woman hung amulets around her neck

But when she shook the palm tree’s trunk

Jesus failed to appear.

Four girls appeared instead, dropping

Like dates in the desert.

* * *

I remember the stranger with the long black hair,

Her eyes the color of honey,

Who only ever left her house once

To cast seven stones

At a mythical creature

In the city of deviance and darkness.

She lived in the kingdom of shadows,

Befriended the twilight,

And disappeared into it

As if she were blind—

The only light she ever saw

Was light that blinded her.

Her eyes looked lost, her face

Was the face of a war zone,

The face of a woman

Dwelling in loss, defeat.

And the only sky she lived in

Brought her down,

Made her sickly, weak.

She never swam in the sea,

Never saw the swans in the lakes,

Never had her morning coffee

In a café.

She never strolled in a park,

Never wrote any love letters,

And never received any.

The blazing sun overwhelmed her—

Her headache never subsided.

She never talked much,

Spoke only within propriety’s bounds,

Spoke only a little,

Spoke only when spoken to,

And when she did speak, her face

Failed to endure,

It disappeared, dropping

Like love.

And when she picked it up again

It turned to dough in her hands.

Forgetting she had a face,

She kept it covered.

Her life was never enough

So I came to complete it.

She always told me

She would wake up in the morning

And it would be a better day.

She was my mother.

She resembled everything

Except a woman who was happy.

I wish I could have seen her

When she was a barefoot child

Chasing butterflies in spring.

Sometimes, very rarely, she would open the window

Overlooking that courtyard with the playing children,

Although she knew the birds, as usual,

Would fail to come.

And whenever the sun’s thin rays snuck in

She winced, as if pricked by a needle.

Her body was frail and weary, like autumn leaves

That fall with the very first wind.

I didn’t recognize her the last time I visited—

I saw a wrinkled face

And a burnt soul,

As though she’d never recovered

From some deep wound.

Are there certain faces for the victors

And others for the vanquished in their prisons, their exile?

My mother’s face was all those faces,

All except the victors’.

A face opaque, dark,

The intersection of blindness and delusion,

A face that rose from the unseen world

Like a wild bird,

And whenever I approached it

The darkness would creep in on it.

She wasn’t feminine—

She was the face of absence,

She was like those animals that are here

Only to be shot

Or mauled,

And so they bear their wounds

And wander through the wilderness.

I was listening to her in the dark—

Or rather, the dark was listening to us.

I was speaking, and she was listening—

Or rather, my father was speaking, and she was listening,

And I knew that when I closed the door of our house

Everything would end and die.

Joy

Here we do not go to the forest—

The forest comes to us and devours us.

Every evening when I come home

I turn on all the lights

Until the rays cut through

To where the wound lies hidden.

I turn them on so that if death comes

I can see my enemy’s face before me.

I turn on the lights but see nothing.

Have I gone blind?

In the evening, when you need something warm

To bring joy closer,

You roll a joint and light it,

You draw the smoke into every aching part of you,

And your mood improves,

Your face relaxes, your muscles soften,

The words in your mouth slacken

And come out in a stupor,

And you rejoice a little, reassured

Of your own presence.

The world around you turns languid, and marvelous,

Your house is radiant now, and full of joy…

Even my neighbor, a French woman who’s mentally ill,

Doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

When I first met her she told me she loves Tangier and the Mediterranean.

The next time she said she loves couscous.

And the last time I saw her, she said she hates us all.

Here, my beloveds, are the places

Where we draw our last breaths

Without dying.

Here we fall in love, and sometimes get married,

And celebrate with divorce.

After fifty, our friends disappear. I don’t mean they die—

They just disappear.

And then depression comes, and boredom too.

Here, my beloveds, when I write a poem about love,

The branches of the tree beside my house

Reach out to me, and ask me to forget.

Here, my beloveds, are the places

Where we draw our last breaths without dying.

Here, my beloveds, some people put an end to their lives

Simply because they are wonderful, and beautiful,

And they cannot bear the joy.

Others cannot bear to live alone—

They give up the ghost as well.

In some Arab countries

We die because warplanes are dropping bombs

And filling the cities and villages

With smoke as dark as coal.

In my country people die because they’re poor and hungry,

Because no doctors see them when they fall ill—

They just stay that way

Until their bodies rot and die.

Image by Julien Posture