for ṣaqir and fahad
By: danah alfailakawi
for ṣaqir and fahad
Created by Amina and Nour Alfailakawi.
he offers me tangerines orangesweet, kūfīyya fraying against his chest. my fingers cup his hand. grateful for plump fruit and brother, i breathe in the tint of the evening as a voice lilts birdsong into the breeze. a bough of a girl sings mawṭinī, sings to shahīd, sings to her falasṭīn, and my womb clenches with hot grief. the debris of the encampment, tenderly erected and brutally obliterated, sits behind the barriers, empire pillage meeting sacral oath. a father lifts the headless corpse of a toddler for the blind to behold. a mother screams ibnī ibnī ibnī sāḥ, ibnī sāḥ. we croon we shall not, we shall not be moved at the setting sun. chirrup and gossamer wings flutter past al-aqṣā doors. lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā bi-l-lāh.
you gather my trembling frame into your arms, the couch sighing velvet beneath our legs. riot shields and bulletproof vests slam against my shoulder. a child topples into the grass, scrambling instantly to her feet and pushing her hair from her face. i wrap my elbow around her waist and shriek at the ruddy wall of meat packed before us. underneath the columns of the building in the distance, you stare at a screen, tapping nimbly at the keyboard, tissue cells pulsing in the dishes behind you. a golden crucifix hangs at your throat. a silver allah swings at mine. i press my cheek against your neck, inhaling the murmur of your voice. my tendons, rigid with bloodsoaked flour, dissolve in the wine sloshing between us. you place a joint at my lips. smoke swirls in the glowing streetlight, the night spilling its black into your slanted apartment. like a child i whimper, burrowing, mewling. you enfold me helplessly. ḥayāti. light of my eyes.
when a man is buried in the dust of the desert, the creator grants him the face of his deeds. ʿabdullah, enshrouded in a white cotton kafan, bears the heavy jaw of a lion. my mother sweeps through the glistening entrance of her four-story home, shrugging the ʿabāya from her shoulders and pouring tea from the dalla into a gold-rimmed istikāna. the first day of her cousin’s funeral clings to the furrow of her brow. like a lion, she notes with pride. in the hushed caverns of a decades-old august, military tanks roll into the street. the invading army, brothers in land and blood, chokes the idleness from the fluttering morning leaves. soldiers gouge the eyes of husbands and sons, dumping bodies onto grandmothers’ doorsteps like grisly souvenirs. in a rotation of basement meetings, a cigarette smolders in the dark. ʿabdullah flips through a sheaf of papers, noting the tally of arms, ammunition, and vehicles traversing the clandestine hubs of the resistance. he glances sharply at the door as it hurtles open with a bang, his comrades heaving a uniformed boy into their midst. squealing, petrified, the combatant sobs, pleading with the shadowy man seated beside ʿabdullah. uncle. mercy. the man stares stonily ahead, repulsed by the whispers of his nephew’s taste for small girls. ʿabdullah rises to his feet. gripping the handle of his knife, he drags the thrashing boy to the courtyard and guts him from gullet to groin. they don’t make men like that anymore, my mother rues. my sister and i nod.
his eyes glitter mint and honey, hollow with overseas carnage. a war baby, he teases, delighted by the realization. i run a fingernail across the portrait of leila khaled gazing through the hair of his calf. sprawled on a mattress on the floor, damp in the aftermath of a midnight romp, he reaches for my rumpled curls. in a corner room above the sea, a man peers into the dregs of a finjān, straining to decipher the hisses of invisible consorts. you will marry the badr and carry his twins. ṣaqir and fahad, i announce solemnly, pressing two palms against my stomach. malcolm, he counters. i frown. his grandfather hides in the branches of a tree, quivering as a horde bleeds his playmate like a lamb. a child’s body, a lump of gashed flesh, hangs in the mirror behind us. when he presses the blade into my chin, snarling like a feral dog, i feign a bleat and blink daintily. the ensuing brawl stains the sheets bright red. as the dawn trickles its pale into his bare apartment, he asks me when i last spoke to my mother. i ask him when he last spoke to his.
hair twisted into a dozen pigtails, i aim a rifle at a floating target. bullets tear violently through the air. i meet a pair of carob eyes over my shoulder, chin resolute. his mouth twitches approvingly.
the rain pelts the pavement as the venue throbs with a jubilation steeped in anguish. clad in leather and tousled with sweat, the artist pauses the performance to address the crowd, loosening arabic into the atlantic winter. the desert swells in my veins. i sob in the middle of the dance floor, entangled in two friends and four arms, soothing whispers spilling into my ear. we love you. we love you. you tower patiently, outsider to the embrace, gaze steady amidst the flashing lights. my fingertips stretch to cling to yours. my sister’s daughters squeal in my mother’s garden and scarper into the khayma, stormclouds of hair tumbling past their waists. your father recalls his trip to the holy land and i fall silent, too grateful for kindness and cranberry tea. when i finally slip into your lanky frame, jittery with powder and loose with drink, i tongue your mother’s crucifix and smile up at you. your forehead presses against mine. you gather me. rūḥi. blood of my heart.
Author bio: danah alfailakawi received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Irvine. Her research explores petroleum, apocalypse, ecology, and futurity on the Arabian Peninsula, and harbors a fixation on love and haunting. She aspires always to embody her calling as teacher and storyteller. Born at noon in August in Kuwait, she writes of home.