Ilma Qureshi, Multan, Pakistan-USA
it is the thick of summer
a friday afternoon
when I put the neem oil in my hair
from the fern green bottle with Indian herbs
that your mother had told us about
the only word stuck in my throat is abyad from bahr al-abyad al-mutawassat[1]
there is white in the Mediterranean Sea and electric green
that hangs on trees outside my window
a student in my summer Arabic class said his grandfather moved
from Albania and met his grandmother from Greece
but he is Muslim and does not care about huwiyya[2]
you entered my life like the first white threading
out of the coal-grey sky: sudden and sharp
that day the sky with its ringed fingers kneaded the whole sky white
i stand at the bus stop
wearing your grey socks with dots of pink and think of melted honey—
the warmth of your arms
the sky outside has turned ashen blue
i hear someone say: it is going to rain
their voices are blurry, the way the world shimmers
without my black rimmed glasses
i return to life, like a childhood memory that suddenly bolts in, raw and fresh,
brown-purple in all its edges
like a torn papyrus left in a bookshelf
like the time you wore a white dress that your mother got stitched
from a local tailor so you could look and feel like Cinderella
and you stood on stage
the hall pounded with claps
and you with your dimpled cheeks and forehead full of fringes
looked at your mother’s face
that had bloomed into a smile
i dust the neem oil from my scalp, thinking of orchids in Kerala,
wondering where it comes from—
thickets, moss, rain boats—someone bent over, squeezing a plant?
i am sure that is not how it works
the glass beads of water glisten like fireflies studded on a July night
i gulp it mouthful, like a lioness growls open its mouth
in a distant forest
where the only sound is that of a river
if you look closely, everything is dirty
if you look closer, everything is pearl white
when we think of people, we hold them still
and flatten their arcs
arranging them like a photograph
she is Arian, he is white
she is a liberal, he does not know how to bow his tie
under the moonlit sky, when she smells of eucalyptus and spearmint,
and he lowers his head
does she want to be wrinkled in a box
or to be loved? each of her moles kissed blue
and for him to see how loveable it is that she knows no directions
and never learnt how to turn her laces
into a butterfly
does he not ache to be loved
for sometimes working way too much
and sneaking gulps of ice cream
in the middle of the night
or forgetting to sweep, muttering
‘cleanliness is just a state of mind’
why then, must one not look close enough?
to see white under the pearl
why then, must one not rend all boxes, drain blood from pens
dust the attic, through all its crevices, all its reams
and wade into the garden
look deep into the eye of a rose
notice all its edges, its neat thorns,
and love it in all is rose-ness
with all its moss?
[1] Abyad means white and behr al-abyad al-mutawassat refers to the Mediterranean sea in Arabic.
[2] Huwiyya means identity in Arabic. It can also mean being, entity, etc.
Ilma Qureshi is currently pursuing her doctorate at the University of Virginia, with a focus on Persian poetics and South Asian Literature. Hailing from Multan, a small town in the south of Pakistan, she grew up with a host of languages and writes in Persian, Urdu, and English. Her work has been previously published in literary journals such as Tafheem, Tareekh-e-Adab-e-Urdu, Active Muse, The Ice Colony, Rigorous Magazine, Last Leaves, The Roadrunner Review, and Audio Times.