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I grew up with death lingering on my family tree
The way an imaginary friend never leaves but was
never there to begin with;
My best friend jokes that our house is haunted
& father hasn’t looked at these walls same since teta left;
The night before she died,
He dreamt her heavenbound, surrounded by ghosts of those fallen before her; He claims others in our family dream the same;
That Sylvia dreamed of auntie the night before she was found dead,
In my culture, we know death intimately.
In Arabic, the highest expression of love is the phrase
“ya’aburnee” Translated “you bury me” -
It means “I love you so much, I’d sooner die than bury you”
It was used by mothers in our lineage who were so used to losing
their young in war; In my culture, we cannot talk about love
without speaking death’s name
***
The first time I met death, it was my earliest memory; age 3:
We go to visit my teta in the hospital. A green drape is covering her still body. The room is 10 degrees colder than the rest of the hospital.
As the nurse wheeled her out of the room, I asked, “is that my teta?”
She looked at me, silent as a tombstone;
How do you explain death to someone
who’s barely old enough to comprehend his own existence?
***
The second time I met death, he stayed;
Middle school me, just learning the meaning of “diaspora”
I saw death follow this Israeli occupation diaspora family across the ocean;
(Cont.)