BY BAZEED

Farangiz Yusupova, *Garden Tower,* acrylic and oil pastels on canvas, 44 x 59 inches, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.

Thus Spake Safia Elhillo

BAZEED | MAR 2022 | ISSUE 14

as told in The January Children, by Safia Elhillo

say something to me in arabic

mixed with water my border dulls

that blue becomes me

& i get lost in wanting

i turn the color of mirrors

i go quiet for days

say something to me in arabic

atlantic got your tongue?

mixed with water my border dulls

i am cutting

pomegranates in my pretty kitchen

& my fingers are sweet red

when i answer my voice

is hoarse from disuse

a brief history of silence

darkens my lips a bitten red & i

full of all the wrong language

i forget the English word for عسل forget

that only bad magic could have emptied that

red

geography

the generation that would leave

rip[ped] lanterns from trees 1

the season’s first mangoes

smell winter

cooling the sear

of a blood-orange sun

& mine is a story older than water

say something to me in arabic

atlantic got your tongue?

I know your father sang to his horses

mixed with water my border dulls

to make use of water

i speak & my mouth is my biggest wound—

juice of crushed & strained hibiscus

i bleed & can’t stop bleeding

& wait for the stain to set

& you need not find me beautiful

making home of the stain

i get searched to the scalp at airport security

i wear my hair big

say something to me in arabic

atlantic got your tongue?

I know your father sang to his horses

to get them to dance

mixed with water my border dulls

it’s only that i’m west of everything i understand

& walking too much will shrink you

they looked at me & thought of water;

i am always halfway gone

i don’t know that song

say something to me in arabic

atlantic got your tongue?

I know your father sang to his horses

to get them to dance

to make

the night a body of water

mixed with water my border dulls

small for my age & always

translating

i grew

&

my rift grew:

i have an accent in every language

i wear blood in my mouth

how is the browngirl what has distance done to her?

she’d learned the accent the affected lilt

home is a place in time

& some things you lose to mark the time.

it was easier to just be

something else.

say something to me in arabic

atlantic got your tongue?

I know your father sang to his horses

to get them to dance

to make

the night a body of water

unspooling from our mouths

mixed with water my border dulls

to know i am not lonely

temper, fingers

sanded down by prayer

beads

i wear my grandfather & my left eye turns to milk

i wear my mother & remember

عِرق:/‘iriq/ n. race; vein

i wear my mother & remember

an heirloom

the tear in its duct

i wear my mother & remember

what marks the end of my body

i wear my brother & a bullet

makes my voice my thickest blood

say something to me in arabic

atlantic got your tongue?

I know your father sang to his horses

to get them to dance

to make nostalgia of these very nights

mixed with water my border dulls

why go in the water

answer me answer me

the black water

answer me

why go in the water

alone

answer me,

if

me leaves no ripples

in its wake?

say something to me in arabic

atlantic got your tongue?

I know your father sang to his horses

to get them to dance

to make nostalgia of these very nights

& mourn only that orphaning

in the name of

eulogizing my mother as a girl

while learning to embroider nameless & tiny flowers—

in the name of

god & my neck—

in the name of

the slow death that is putting

your breath in another’s body—

in the name of

the way only foul water can kill—

in the name of

half-languages & blood thick with medication—

in the name of

air a fat piece of velvet—

in the name of

most days i forget the sound of my voice—

in the name of

crossed an ocean & thought it was enough to keep us safe—

in the name of

left behind two [ ] & four

hundred thousand [ ] — 2

in the name of

what if i don’t want to bear fruit—

in the name of

smiled with my teeth—

in the name of

if you had known the water was deep/would you have set sail—

in the name of

the year the nile was dug—

in the name of

the part i keep forgetting

& my story perfect by never beginning—

let the ocean close

back up.

little brown nightingale

beloved of our whole language

i know what the water did to you—

والله حبيبي مهما تنسى

verily everything that is lost will be

given a name

& verily a border-shaped wound will

be licked clean

home is

a name

& all our dead

in the ground make the land ours

the dead root me to strange cities

haunt the balcony

hear only what i cannot speak

& tell me it is time to come home

they made poems committed to memory & the poem

died with the body

i think of glamour

what i’ve seen does not live forever

& maybe it is too easy to blame

mortality on our capacity for love

what if I die what happens to everything i haven’t

the legend goes

the storied mouth

& a final song

fly home, make home

survive the failed body

& a prayer

dissolved in water casts a spell

does that answer the question?

mixed with water my border dulls

there’s a saying about women who cannot

remember their homes

the story goes—

try it like this: there once was a world…

there once was a world

& then there was only water

try it like this: there once was a world…

there once was a world

before the old country crumbled

before it turned to dust

try it like this: there once was a world…

[you can sing now if you want to]

there once was a world

& i want my due

of شاي صاموطي

tea leaves

boiled in milk

today i woke up & was not dead & tomorrow

& for every country i lose i make another & i make another

& my name is my name is my name is my name is

a prayer

dissolved in water—

casts a spell

& my lost ones are not lost to me they live.

¹ the original line is “rip lanterns from trees”

² the original line is "left behind two siblings & four hundred thousand widows"

A Note on the Text: This cento is part of a larger collection in progress entitled “thus spake Zulaïkha,” gathering in centos the work of Arab writers who are making a home in the diaspora of English.

Bazeed is an Egyptian immigrant, writer, performance artist, stage actor, and cook living in Brooklyn. An alliteration-leaning writer of prose, poetry, plays, and pantry lists, their work across genres has been published in print and online, and their plays performed on stages in the United States and abroad, including Kilo Batra: In Death More Radiant, presented in December 2021 at the Arab American National Museum. Bazeed is currently at work on a book-length erasure poem of the hyper-racist text, The Arab Mind; The Sunshine School Songbook, a solo cabaret sponsored by late-stage capitalism and the algorithms of Gulf Labor dystopias; and the second draft of their so-faggy-it’s-in-the-title! play, faggy faafi Cairo boy.

Farangiz Yusupova is an artist whose work explores ideas of cultural dissonance, home, and memory through painting. Born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Farangiz immigrated to New York with her family in 2014. She holds a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. In the summer of 2018, Farangiz was awarded a scholarship to attend a workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, Colorado. Her work was exhibited in numerous group shows such as at 56 Bogart St, Brooklyn, NY (in affiliation with M. David & Co), Dodomu Gallery and Mi-Sul Virtual Exhibition, and Yonkers Arts Weekend. Farangiz is currently participating in NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentorship Program.