Two Poems

hung from the roof, mistaken for a flag when the light bends

like a rose bud / snuck / on the olive tree
I make of his mouth / a fragrant limb
he makes of my hips / a fertile ground
and we drip oil / so
a neighbor’s cigarette / could put us out

we birth pangs of light
ode to the boys who loved like this

thick beards / gather dust / beneath cedars
heave names / inherited / wail
of unholy drums
new music / muted

symphony and bloom / made throb

beneath caravans / and cities praying
the earth / never gave
they say / they say

my people / as much country
as the figs and rubble
slipped bells / on every branch
wedding of ghosts / starved
miracle ringing / wreckage
calling itself / an orchard

Every Fairuz Song is a Separate Grief and the Same Joy

sometimes a mountain daughter       takes her name        from the blue

of a stone         & sometimes she is given         a sore back   & minimum wage

still we sing for our country      all her people       gone

gathering      softer language    still we sing     mountains murmur

in all our refrains      a child knows        how to hold

a distant mother        prop the radio          on night’s window

& when the neighbors     call the cops                     forget America

run the water            like a village song       shared & stomping

the whole people drink

every well             for every daughter            the whole people drink

every Amen      & every Allah              the whole people drink

portion the flood like bread                         the whole people drink

[ do you remember    rain pooling in the unpaved roads?       habibi      call sometime ]

my parents used to say        Fairuz         makes music      so beautiful

even the American people       kneel on the steps of her voice    Did you ever think

someone would sing about us

          with America listening?

_________

Philipe AbiYouness is a Lebanese-American poet, theatre artist, and educator. His work is featured or forthcoming in Sukoon Magazine, Maps for Teeth, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Fugue. He received the Academy of American Poets Prize when he was a senior at Drew University. As a teaching artist, Philipe has taught workshops in Beirut, the Bronx, Manhattan, Florida, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York State.