PASSPORT CONTROL - DAHLIA DANDASHI

“From Damascus, horses begin their journey And the stirrups are tightened for the great conquest From Damascus, eternity begins . . . and with her Languages remain and genealogies are preserved And Damascus gives Arabism its form And on its land, epochs materialize.”

—Nizar Qabbani

Written and photographed by Dahlia Dandashi Design and collage by Sabrina Sommer

OLIVE SOAP The sounds of Syria Sing through my windows as I sleep.

The sun is always the same here And when she shines her teeth I feel her smile on my hot cheeks — Every midday nap seduces me And every time I doze I wake up in the souk.

In this life, I eat charred corn on a rooftop My short legs, dangling like wind chimes from cedar trees I croon ballads to chickpeas and pistachios as I walk through My plump heart, a succulent pomegranate of song.

The birds still fly here, They do not believe in war or bloodshed But when I am awake I know the truth.

The Mediterranean is my mother Watching me with brooding eyes and heavy tears Even from afar Anticipating my return.

Syria, I still taste you in my dreams, Your arms and legs Now lost somewhere in memories of olive oil and lye.

What was left of us Died long ago in crowded shoeboxes Photographs trapped under frustrated rubble just aching to pupate.

My lonely soul calls for the flooding sea and salt.

With or without me The Mediterranean is my mother She will live on And I will only die Once she swallows me whole.

TRANSIT

ODE TO MOTHER Is it a shock that I am so loud?

That every time I open my mouth The neighbors and super and shop owners Know it is unequivocally me.

It is a shock Because blossoming in my household Was blossoming, trapped In the claws of culture and religion In the arms of Syrian woman Fatigued by expectation and tragedy.

But when my jaw cracks open And you inch your head inside You will feel the flood before you see it.

Say aaaaahhhhh A crash of war and poverty Young love and young death A town where a last name meant everything And now means nothing.

When she tells me “It’s like I didn’t even raise you” My only reaction is to scoff.

Because who else was I meant to be?

These eyes and arms My lips and teeth A bull veiled by a nest of curls All inherited from you.

Obedient, I will not be Your daughter I am.

MORNING/MOURNING We are in the spit of morning When I feel my head, the planet Break open Like fresh-bought eggs.

My cat is true to me (the truth to me) He smiles like a dog He eats the familiar food He joins me on my island Even when I’m the stranger Stranded in bedroom exile.

When he scuttles out of my room I beg him to stay Stay, mate Stalemate Stalemate Stay, mate Stay Oh baby Can I still call you baby Are we big enough To kiss and wave at each other from the sidelines?

I’ve lost my mind But I can still mourn me You’re not the only one who misses her If you’re hungry later, I can feed you Eggs and all I can gift you You’re not the only one who misses her

DAHLIAS It is a burden to be a flower!

They expect me to be blithe and blossomed, even when I am gardening and weeding Picking at my soiled fingers one by one.

What if I wish to be sad and hungry?

Or what if I’m looking for a kiss Or new seed Whichever comes first To set me on a course for something profound I have yet to discover?

BIRTHDAY WISHES On this day, I wish To be my mother, to be a mother, to caress the baby, to kiss the homeless man, to learn German, to know what you’re listening to (Sir, what’s the song?), to follow the fighting couple who are still holding hands, to run across Bleecker Street naked, to push the other baby in their stroller, to take the M1 bus to Harlem with the girl who snuck on, to kiss the strangers who are kissing between sips, to eat the ice cream from grandpa’s mouth, to collapse next to the dying pigeon and join him in the next life (Is there an afterlife?), to be the photocopy machine that made this boy resemble his mother so proudly, to be the Q train so I can always be above ground and never feel under the weather.

Give me these gifts They are not much, but they are everything to me.

NO TITLE Do you see me Doe-eyed and baby Do you like the breakfast I made Do you like the way my books are lined up Do you like my mother tongue Do you like the cave of my mouth Do you want to die inside of it No It will be In and Out Like the beat of a drum Like a sudden calling for death And then death itself.

WET DREAM In my dream, I was a voracious and tall Dahlia flower.

The man fingering my petals was a stranger, but I knew I needed to be watered and drunk from five times over.

He said, I bet nothing tastes better than the forbidden fruit.

What I would like to do is hold you tight Because I eat well And trust me, I don’t leave a spot without watering.

Some oceans are drinkable.

When did you arrive?

When did you arrive?

A lull of stagnant water And then a hot flash.

I walk around To find you in the caves of my mind But when or how you arrived, I do not know.

You begin writing to me in a language I cannot read But I write back, hotly and electrified Before I take the first bite.

With you The air is no longer bored And the moon becomes the sun.

LOSER I am a loser Not a sore one But the one who lost everything.

I remember the boy they called Volcano Who ran up and down the street Huffing and puffing that he needed a wife.

On my grandmother’s balcony I howled at the moon Night after night Licking the stars one by one It’s almost as if I knew.

I think about Teta’s secrets Labeled and color-coded between her mattress and bed frame.

All the phantoms I used to know in skin Now swell the mosque’s courtyard I wonder what they have left to pray for.

Catastrophe Violence Siege Massacre Bomb Blast We have won these words But lost it all.

ROSEWATER I pour and pour until the bowl can hold no more The rosewater takes me away back to times when showering with water and wooden buckets Was how we survived heat.

I see her on the balcony, Dried flowers and ivy pinned to her curls, Sewing us into the quilts she created by hand Unraveling our ancestry with every poke And pull through As she made us part of our soil.

My teta A library of scintillating stories A bursting cabinet of spices The matriarch that made us The Queen of Syria The goddess that seamed blankets with historical fingertips To build armor stronger than any word of animosity.

They speak of us with desolate tongues, But they do not know how sweet my teta tastes.

She is rosewater, Tangy and grounded Passionate and blossoming The water of earth that nourishes me and fills fountains The origin of life that brings me back home.

MOON LANDING I am so close to the craters on your face.

The suns And moons The moles And dimples All scattered Breathing in and out Every time you smile or frown Fuck.

You look so nice in this cosmic ocean Our bodies separated only by a galaxy of bath water You look so nice in this cosmic ocean And it’s just my luck

PARADISE You told me you thought you were haunted. But you were just the opposite. Your indifference, your waning desire to desire. I couldn’t save you, but I knew I could lie there and let you watch the sun come in and out on my ribs. We had no love, we had no trees.

Only rain and the understanding that this was our only paradise.

PET CEMETERY It’s a new morning and the cadavers of men continue to drift on by. Ghosts!

I’m positive they have a monthly coffee klatch or book club with an ‘open door’ policy to ensure bonding. As it turns out, I’m still young and membership stays open until I become a cadaver myself.

Remember this: New York City is a country where they can all live, forever. Even underground.

Why else would Greenwood Cemetery be so big? Where else would our ex-lovers go after the relationship dies and they succumb to death?

Where else would they go after their deaths?

DIRTY POEM The laundry is sticky and hot and in love.

They all drip and cry in unison Their wet guts, spinning drunk and dizzy.

They are spineless, foolish creatures Who kiss and kiss in the love machine.

The timer goes off.

The clothes may no longer be dirty But they are the dirtiest I’ve ever seen.

You know If we moved somewhere else, We wouldn’t have a dryer We could effortlessly fold into one another And air out our filthy laundry on the balcony For the whole neighborhood to see.

3 A.M. Are you thinking of me?

The saxophone is swooning us through the radio. I am melting and I can count every second your cologne sinks into me.

Everyone is yelling, spewing puerile comments, but not you.

I can feel you tense.

Do you know?

Silly me. It was only a brush of the hand.

G TRAIN / HOLY FUCK What a sad way to part from one another Without planes Or trains Or buses To blame as an excuse for our departure.

You feel so far Yet we are closer than we’ve ever been.

But Holy Fuck This Is Over -

NEW YORK I have learned to worship this cat I live with In this city I have learned to live in With this weather I have come to hate.

Bodega Man pretends he doesn’t know me in the street But performs a “Salam” to me in the store I am not angry with him, I just wonder why, When I bike past the mosque on Fulton, Billie Holiday stops singing ‘Easy Living’ in my head.

My breath is stolen By tempered wind or shock, I am unsure Either way, I begin a convulsive cry.

I cry and cry Because not one person here knows my name Because boring into my eyes Does not mean you will remember me After I slimy-slug my way across the street.

I cry and cry And the cars continue to spit past And the hot trash continues to take refuge on sticky streets And the call to pray continues to untwine And I continue to swell the waterfront.

Surreptitious cries do not exist in New York Rather, tears are shared with all the passerby Including a God I pretend is here But who is not Because this isn’t Heaven It’s just Brooklyn.

Universe, I remember you It’s just that sometimes The buildings and cigarettes and subway cars and broken umbrellas and Dahlias I buy Make me forget

Make me forget the Dahlia I sleep with The Dahlia I bathe with The Dahlia I pray with The Dahlia I kiss before I dream.

The truth is I come in many in blushes But not one is one I seem to like.

I am sometimes capricious And constantly bewildered And when I ask Bodega Man why everything is the way it is And why I feel the way that I do He simply shrugs his shoulders And bites into his sandwich.