My Father’s House is a Terrorist Target

My Father’s House is a Terrorist Target
By Elmaz AbiNader

Two For Hayan:

The subject line of an email
The subject line of my shortness of breath
The subject line of the phone call
to my own father
who stands in the sun and lifts his head toward the sky
listening

Your father slows his car
on the highway from Beirut
tea and anise cookies in a cupboard
a few miles away, a few miles away
where the beds are empty, the sofa
losing the impression of his body,
the kitchen table with a bowl of apricots
your father slows the car a few miles
away—his eyes glaze over at the night
in front of him, at the stars falling
into the ends of the earth the horizon

My father—in high dry grass in Maryland
leaves the television talking behind him
loud enough the neighbors all hear what
what he doesn’t, lets the phone ring
recognizing the sorrowful notes of his children
asking about home his brothers their families
twists buttons off his shirt counting them
like pennies and the years he left Lebanon
behind stars falling into the ends
of the earth the horizon

Your father taking his son and wife home
slows his car but does not watch for long
It is routine to turn around hope for Beirut
damage will be measured tomorrow
when they return if they can

My father alone in the yard implores
his mother and my mother
as the fireflies rise up and orbit
around his head – knowing that he cannot return

You are not the son sitting in the back of the car
reaching a hand forward as the city burns
I am not the daughter pulling my father back
into the house as he whispers the air

We both sit still our arms covering our heads
a kind of prayer and protection from memory
and anger and shortness of breath. You write
the subject line, my father’s house is a terrorist
target and I want to answer each word of that line
breathe deep into the dust and disaster, but cannot – slow down a few miles away, gaze outside the glass
and find myself stuck. I cannot go beyond my father’s.