Gazelle Boy
David Zaza
Gazelle Boy
David Zaza 2019
for Salah Rajab
I’m the gazelle boy running rough streets for money, hunted by the lions of exile. Memories lie half of one day away, my body timing itself down. I’m two people, my bodies timing themselves down. Hours stretch into miles. I call the distance, the husk and timbre of my voice under the dome of the darkened damascene sky. Mother roughs her days dreaming, thinking of nothing. Memories of running stunned in arid sunshine, of decades slumped into pasts— Father’s decades, all his blame and hunger lying in the wake of their running. Separate lives, separate cities, the sun blinding the souls of everyone.
I’m the gazelle boy, returning, jumping the ocean. My horizon is summer itself. A taller city calls me by another name. I resist the urge to question it. I run. I’m running. I’m looking at towers above me. From inside, I see myself hurdling walls that are ooded with white, crumbling into light. White passes over, under. What is wonder? One’s travel through one lifetime governs the mind. The foot shufes in the gravel of a distant drive. The present becomes the path of the labyrinth. Faster I run. The cars beside me drive. I am showing off. My breath, undertone of life, chuffs out of me. I stop and stand. I’m still. I lie on the ground.
I’m the gazelle boy stopping to lie dreaming, slumbering in darkness and solitude. Above this room families struggle to welcome me home. Lovingly they stutter, in layers of generations, burying their son in the margins, in the fogs of blur and focus, under the heavy muds of marriage and division, the sludge behind time’s motions. My body curves, my sleep is slowed by darkness, settling the rhythm of my heart. The weight of histories, the blankets of future experience, adopt the form of my breath. I rest my head in the sands of trust and hope. Each moment shifts. Drifts. My chest expands. A hand shines down in the darkness. A star. What do I believe?
I’m the gazelle boy whose small body is suddenly as vast as the ocean I’ve crossed. The soul’s extremities, reaching the shallow edges of the sea’s far reaches, synthesize light and night and order, feeding on the strands of heritage, sensing safety and the will to hope. I am the liquid melody of consciousness. Behind my eyes I am head and chest and gut, anchoring my awareness down. I’m two people, anchoring my awarenesses down, boring the muddy bottom. My gatefold heart swings open with sunlight, roiling the tentative sands. I lie in myself and oat throughout my body, this dream as simple as ight.
I’m the gazelle boy banding my quiet songs, running my days through their paces. From New York I’ve brought my grids and angles. My crushed admirers send postcards. The long distance of Mother’s refrains repeat their faithful lyrical histories. She is singing, Take one of my eyes so you can always see me. I love you so much take both of my eyes because I love you that much. She sings, quietly, in memory, You will make me wanted and you’ll take my eyes as well. Her voice in my veins, half of one day away, our city mapping itself out. We’re two people, our cities mapping themselves out, pinning my borders in place.
I’m the gazelle boy, pegging the earth with towers. The rattles and noisy clanging of new cities surround us like the beauty of glass bitten into stars and heavens. The heat and the sand pass over populations accustomed to the constant idling. Trafc circles turn to white, light, like mysterious desert snow. I’m watching animals, they crawl with curved perfection. The yellow of their skins glints. Through the city the animals run, faster than my own quickening heartbeat. In and out, we’re using the family building as a stable, or a shipyard, or track. Our course unwinds before us, like yesterday’s histories swinging around to form futures.
I’m the gazelle boy, praying again for the lions. Never certain where I am, I x myself in the beds of east and west, in the hands of the faint and faithless. The music rises and swells in the silver heat. Accents fall into place, Mother’s accents— perfectly placed and ordered, chords of simultaneous speech. Hiding in rhythms, the meanings of days and travels embed themselves in my voice. My two languages make a melismatic slide into me. Surprised, I slip into a crouch. I turn and leap, forgetting I am a man. Rest. Be thankful. Rest. I dream of colors, dreams large and abstract, just ideas of colors. Listen.
I’m the gazelle boy running to the sounding of horns, counting my way through the crowds. I’m always escaped. Always the continuous boy who threads the family’s seams. Prayer returns. The future’s endless memories ask everything of us. Waiting at home, closing my eyes in hope, I open the future’s heart. From inside, my voice. Quickness is not enough. The sacred and the scared all run. Time yourself, send yourself looking forward over the soft earth. Turn the window toward the eastern light. Lift your body into its arms. Lace Damascus with the sound of soft panting, the shufe of a gentle hoof.
Printed in an edition of 100 by Coeur Noir, Brooklyn, New York December 2019 / 100