Two Poems by Reem Abbas

In these two bilingual poems, Reem Abbas probes notions of language, family, and voice. Elegant and rhythmic, Abbas makes use of the gaps between words and worlds, raising questions of home and remembrance. 

Patios/Al-Baha

ها يا ريم طمنيني كيفكم؟ . Nana rings for it has been twelve

hours since we last spoke and the image of us veering

off Al-Baha’s sharp turns perturbs— this free-wheeling

polished body being tossed into air, glistening under a

desert sun like a fish breaks surface flashing scales. But there is

neither water nor earth, only painted doors of ramshackle homes

hidden by fog and a perilous plummet. I look out onto

colourful doors and reply, we’re fine. كأننا

طالعين المهاجرين my sister observes, and I ask: why is it

called ‘The Immigrants’? My back presses into the seat as we swerve.

Ears patient, I strain for Baba’s glottals over music and white

noise. We zip through views of cities ancient and old, hit brakes for packs

of baboons that cross the streets of both. Sometimes, Baba says, they even

occupy houses that are مهجوره . Instead of snapping shots

as my wiser sister does I read what rancorous predesti

nations decided Beirut would be a show of shards that shimmered

أحمر . I have been trained to detach, to know only a handful

of fragrant tropes. So I read with Oriental eyes while inertia

bends and hurls my body, sends flying whips of hair —

but here, a voice of turquoise lyricizes:

لأجلك يا مَدينَةَ الصلاة أُصَلي

and there’s no mistaking the melancholia with which the nay

apostrophises after a lost بلاد . How do I, whose trun

cated Syrian syllables, I, whose g’s are no longer hard, whose

ط is lost to translation, whose Nana must lip-read to understand

speak to you? In what ear do you sieve my words—I hear my

own? Baba’s eyes catch mine in the rear view and they

are the shape of politics and poetics. هجره and home.

Hamasat: Memory

It came to her through the pitch of night.

Travelled speeds like closing space, bodies before impact:

elsewhere sea pants shore, wingspan tucks into plume,

groundsel folds on air, arms on child, shade on moonlight.

It came as a frequency incessant through layers of sleep,

through sticky eyes fumbling for a phone. The voice

was calm, barely audible in the silence of night.

So much like her mother’s it strained through

distance even radio waves seldom meet.

She listened, flattening crinkled sheets.

So unlike her mother’s rippling alphabet, it

spoke of silence and sleep. Laylat-ul Qadr and heaven.

It’s a blessing, she’s lucky — firdaws forgiveness firāq.

This night, an absence and a presence, marks a

different dawn. Inna lillāhi wa inna ilayhi rāji’un.

This pitch came in heaving breaths, wringing silence.

Doubled over up out her body remembered sujood,

purge so much like prostration. It came to her in

the pauses between: wine-red Vimto, sour tang dibs

el rumman, fattoush crunch, qahwa murra. Her mother

broke her fasts with a cigarette, inhaled fumes like

fresh air, clouds of bakhour. She remembered in

white spots and teased vision, fast acid sting that prickles skin:

the waning moon, perishing, told her it was Ramadan.

Cover image by Kemo Sahab on Unsplash