same shade
MEHRNOOSH TORBATNEJAD
I should thank July for hot coils streaming from its gut,
for an outdoor sprawl like this. The Park for its once marshy ground,
Minetta Creek, grasses and reeds before the elms and basswoods
behind us, for the phantoms of ailing bodies that graciously allow us
to enjoy the wading fountain, the Arch and its negative space sitting atop
their unmarked burial sites. I should thank Friday. I should even thank
my own breath so deliberately continued. But the women—who soaked
quince seeds and steeped them in boiled water for sore throats, who crushed black
cumin until it spilled oil they glossed to inflamed skin, collected althea carpels
for chest pains, dug garlic daughter bulbs for indigestion, mixed violets
with lime juice for fevers, milked basil nutlets into gelatinous oblongs
and delivered the cold infusion to the flu-ridden—are the ones
who come to mind. How, some thousands of years ago, sifted and smoked
just enough, blended stalks, flower heads, fibrous roots and sprigs into tonics,
inhalants, pastes for the bellies of postnatal women, for the visitors,
for the strangers, for the hamsayyeh, the of the same shade, the next-door
neighbor. When he spreads himself on the backless stone benches,
I press my perspiring thighs together like tongues
engaged beneath my floral dress, position the flesh
for his head to rest. And as usual, he drifts quickly, his hand hanging
in the air floats low, fingers rise and drop slowly, glide
into twilight as if hesitant to play music. I think of them today,
Persian menders who pulled ingredients from dirt and brewed them
until remedies surged. When I look down at him, my sunglasses
slide a bit and I wipe the side of his face with the back
of my hand. I know this relief is small, a formula as simple as pushing
sweat away from his temple and deeper into his hair. But I think
it still pleases them, watching one of their descendants stirred
by the need for her own holistic antidote--
am I not a concoction of healers? Nothing different could be true.
for an outdoor sprawl like this. The Park for its once marshy ground,
Minetta Creek, grasses and reeds before the elms and basswoods
behind us, for the phantoms of ailing bodies that graciously allow us
to enjoy the wading fountain, the Arch and its negative space sitting atop
their unmarked burial sites. I should thank Friday. I should even thank
my own breath so deliberately continued. But the women—who soaked
quince seeds and steeped them in boiled water for sore throats, who crushed black
cumin until it spilled oil they glossed to inflamed skin, collected althea carpels
for chest pains, dug garlic daughter bulbs for indigestion, mixed violets
with lime juice for fevers, milked basil nutlets into gelatinous oblongs
and delivered the cold infusion to the flu-ridden—are the ones
who come to mind. How, some thousands of years ago, sifted and smoked
just enough, blended stalks, flower heads, fibrous roots and sprigs into tonics,
inhalants, pastes for the bellies of postnatal women, for the visitors,
for the strangers, for the hamsayyeh, the of the same shade, the next-door
neighbor. When he spreads himself on the backless stone benches,
I press my perspiring thighs together like tongues
engaged beneath my floral dress, position the flesh
for his head to rest. And as usual, he drifts quickly, his hand hanging
in the air floats low, fingers rise and drop slowly, glide
into twilight as if hesitant to play music. I think of them today,
Persian menders who pulled ingredients from dirt and brewed them
until remedies surged. When I look down at him, my sunglasses
slide a bit and I wipe the side of his face with the back
of my hand. I know this relief is small, a formula as simple as pushing
sweat away from his temple and deeper into his hair. But I think
it still pleases them, watching one of their descendants stirred
by the need for her own holistic antidote--
am I not a concoction of healers? Nothing different could be true.
Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad’s poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Waxwing, and Asian American Writers’ Workshop, among others. She won the 2019 LUMINA La Lengua contest and the 2016 Pinch Literary Prize, and is a Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, and Best New Poets nominee. She lives in New York where she practices law.
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THE AUTHOR ON MUSCLE MEMORY
I often daydream about interviewing my ancestors since I don’t know much about my family history beyond my great grandparents. I’m always imagining conversations with them specific to how they commanded their emotions with what they had. And even though the poem recognizes foremothers for inventing methods to care for bodies, it is actually a tribute to a descendant’s greatest ancestral inheritance: the will to survive, an heirloom that exists by virtue of what we carry at any given moment in our breathing bodies. & ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE KALEIDOSCOPED To be kaleidoscoped is to readily and gently rupture the whole of our being into a reexamined sum of its parts. Each part shares colors, shapes, and patterns with the other, but from different angles. In other words, to be kaleidoscoped is to evaluate the self from an unfamiliar perspective, yet one that is still vibrant and mesmerizing. |