Massachusetts 22, or A Poem About Things That Are Not Real

Letters From Home

my prophesy

Dear sweet bouquet boy,
As a child, I learned to recognize nightmares
so I could wake quickly.
The trick is to look for your feet. If you know the ground you stand on,
you are awake enough to escape.

I have been searching for the trick out of this one
like the off button on the TV remote,
but the landscape has changed, and I am stuck
in a daily lineup of exhausted newsmen.
They broadcast into the living room, uninvited,
announcing our inevitable win.

Habibi,
I have long stopped asking which ‘we’ includes me.
I remind myself:
this time, the white faces
are not the enemy.
But we keep your picture
by the phone, the skin of your cheeks
a soft-smiling target
rising from the gray-green collar.

Dear fear-maker,
After two weeks,
the mailman gave up.
He adds each day’s envelopes to the pile
on the porch. The dog has begun fetching
it for us, a few pieces at a time.
She looks confused when your mother
doesn’t thank her.

Dear heart-beater,
When she sleeps, your mother makes a nest of the sheets
so I cannot touch her.
She never used to stay up past ten,
but some nights I find her awake
in your bedroom.
She is not a prayer woman.
She stands in the perfect squares
of window-cut light,
whispering letters to the mailman in the moon, negotiating their safe passage:

please,
find him on your next trip.

Dear middle child,
Your sister became the first ninth-grade girl
to be suspended for fighting in school.
The report said the other girl started it.

Dear bearer of my father’s name,
Your grandmother gave birth on three battlegrounds.
My sisters were born in Baghdad and Jerusalem.
I arrived in Tehran, just before we had to leave.
I never thought my children would grow up under that side of the sun,
toughen their feet on the sand without shoes,
never wanted them to know what it means to run
from anyone.

My son,
do the other soldiers know
you come from a family
where the men kiss
each other on both cheeks?

Dear traveler,
Tell me how sand feels under boot soles.
Take pictures of your footsteps before
the wind comes through. Send them to me
so I know you’ve arrived.
Maybe I’ll know where you are by the color of the ground.
If I recognize it, I promise
I’ll wake us both up.