Hala Alyan
Habituation
today a woman tucked me between her legs like an egg // of course I think egg // she tells me each
chakra is blocked // it feels prickly, she says of the hand between // my hipbones // you can pray
now, // she says of the hand // on my forehead // what I don’t ask is // when will this heart boat
itself across the ocean // when will this heat break // I want a winter twice as long as summer and
I applaud the flock // of geese pulling the night sky like a white thread // ask me about habituation
// and I’ll show you Paris in July // how the days noosed me like a turtleneck // each dawn a
misfiring of cortisol // listen / I threw a silk dress over the balcony // onto a street in Montmartre
// isn’t that another way of saying I need this, too? // please don’t misunderstand me // my husband
sings and I fall to my knees // I should know better at this point // than to believe my own body //
but hasn’t the story already changed because I told it // don’t I circle my life like a vulture for
sound bites // the hot black of a movie theater // panic-bent over the sink // the water glass in four
pieces // the fist I recognized in the dream // what would you tell her, the woman asks // about my
own shivering body on that bed // I’d say you wanted enlightenment // did you think you’d find it
at the bodega // next to the sunflowers // I’d say pay attention // I’d say wipe your face // get some
rest // you’re going to need it // I’d say you said you were ready // so show me
September, a week in
& I reek of nostalgia: balconies with rubber plants and ecstasy trips,
backseats, cold showers, Halloween in a shredded dress. They’re
all the same man at this point and we’re no closer to God.
They get married, have daughters, lose their hair.
Nothing will wreck your life like wanting something
that isn’t in it. Or was it getting it. I’m trying to be enough
for this body: one heartbeat, flung like a shovel into the day.
I play Nadia’s voice message blessing me with a son, but
it’s autumn again and I’m bleeding with the moon. I want
to lay in her lap like a bouquet of flowers, but this isn’t the time
for rhetoric. I’m crossing traffic in my dreams. I’m watching
a coyote watch my grandmother. It’s been seven years:
molecularly we have regenerated. I love what I love, but I’m
still shedding leaves from my hair on a Beirut street,
I’m walking into the past with unlaced boots and gasoline,
& if nobody stops me, I’ll rummage up the old numbers,
uncork lipstick, leave a trainwreck of cities and wives behind me.
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in Poetry, The New York Times and elsewhere. Her poetry collection ATRIUM was awarded the 2013 Arab American Book Award in Poetry, while her latest collection, HIJRA, was selected as a winner of the 2015 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and published by Southern Illinois University Press. Both debut novel, SALT HOUSES (winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize) and her newest collection, THE TWENTY-NINTH YEAR, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her website can be found at www.halaalyan.com and she resides in Brooklyn.
Return to January 2020 Edition
today a woman tucked me between her legs like an egg // of course I think egg // she tells me each
chakra is blocked // it feels prickly, she says of the hand between // my hipbones // you can pray
now, // she says of the hand // on my forehead // what I don’t ask is // when will this heart boat
itself across the ocean // when will this heat break // I want a winter twice as long as summer and
I applaud the flock // of geese pulling the night sky like a white thread // ask me about habituation
// and I’ll show you Paris in July // how the days noosed me like a turtleneck // each dawn a
misfiring of cortisol // listen / I threw a silk dress over the balcony // onto a street in Montmartre
// isn’t that another way of saying I need this, too? // please don’t misunderstand me // my husband
sings and I fall to my knees // I should know better at this point // than to believe my own body //
but hasn’t the story already changed because I told it // don’t I circle my life like a vulture for
sound bites // the hot black of a movie theater // panic-bent over the sink // the water glass in four
pieces // the fist I recognized in the dream // what would you tell her, the woman asks // about my
own shivering body on that bed // I’d say you wanted enlightenment // did you think you’d find it
at the bodega // next to the sunflowers // I’d say pay attention // I’d say wipe your face // get some
rest // you’re going to need it // I’d say you said you were ready // so show me
September, a week in
& I reek of nostalgia: balconies with rubber plants and ecstasy trips,
backseats, cold showers, Halloween in a shredded dress. They’re
all the same man at this point and we’re no closer to God.
They get married, have daughters, lose their hair.
Nothing will wreck your life like wanting something
that isn’t in it. Or was it getting it. I’m trying to be enough
for this body: one heartbeat, flung like a shovel into the day.
I play Nadia’s voice message blessing me with a son, but
it’s autumn again and I’m bleeding with the moon. I want
to lay in her lap like a bouquet of flowers, but this isn’t the time
for rhetoric. I’m crossing traffic in my dreams. I’m watching
a coyote watch my grandmother. It’s been seven years:
molecularly we have regenerated. I love what I love, but I’m
still shedding leaves from my hair on a Beirut street,
I’m walking into the past with unlaced boots and gasoline,
& if nobody stops me, I’ll rummage up the old numbers,
uncork lipstick, leave a trainwreck of cities and wives behind me.
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American writer and clinical psychologist whose work has appeared in Poetry, The New York Times and elsewhere. Her poetry collection ATRIUM was awarded the 2013 Arab American Book Award in Poetry, while her latest collection, HIJRA, was selected as a winner of the 2015 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry and published by Southern Illinois University Press. Both debut novel, SALT HOUSES (winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize) and her newest collection, THE TWENTY-NINTH YEAR, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her website can be found at www.halaalyan.com and she resides in Brooklyn.
Return to January 2020 Edition