To draw.
First, I jab at the sand’s surface.
I plunge my twig’s point,
splitting open warm, brown powder,
making it obey.
Then I pull back
in a single quick-strike
that forms an arc,
sloping long.
I like this line.
I draw a second one
to mirror the first.
These side-by-side swerves
reveal a bird,
wings wide.
Soaring
from my twig’s tip.
Created with my own hands.
Drawing, drawing
in the sand.
HAND, TWIG, SPARROW
When I draw, it’s not me doing it.
It’s my hand.
And my twig.
And my sparrow.
My hand
and my twig
and my sparrow
make the lines.
My hand
and my twig
and my sparrow
do the dance
on the sand.
I never know
what my hand
and my twig
and my sparrow
will create.
My hand
holds my twig.
But my twig goes
on its own.
My sparrow—that’s what’s inside me:
flight.
THE JANJAWEED
My mother doesn’t want me to go to school,
yet I must endure
today’s lesson from Muma
about something called the Janjaweed.
I’ve heard grown-ups speak of this,
but only with other grown-ups.
Now Muma is speaking to me.
Quietly.
Clearly.
She watches my eyes
to make sure I’m paying attention.
Muma tells me
the Janjaweed
have formed as the result
of this war Dando has tried to explain.
“The Janjaweed are bad people,” Muma says.
I know what bad people means,
but Muma soon turns this
into a difficult lesson.
Like my father making no sense
of war,
my mother uses strange words
to help me understand.
These words do no good
in teaching me:
Armed
Militia
Bandits
Renegades
Muma says Janjaweed
means
“devils on horseback.”
I try to pay attention,
but I’m struggling.
FRIGHT
I work hard
to find meaning
in what sounds like
a tale for
telling at night,
when we want to scare each other.
I listen,
only out of respect
for Muma,
and because,
when my strong mother speaks
of the Janjaweed,
her whole face fills with fright.
I fidget.
I want this lesson over.
Muma collects both my hands in hers.
She holds firm.
“Amira, look at me,” she insists.
I make myself stay with her gaze.
My mother says,
“The Janjaweed attack without warning.
If ever they come—run.”
POSSIBILITIES
Dando and I have a favorite game called
What Else Is Possible?
The only real rule for our game
is that answers to the question
What else is possible?
can only be good.
Dando goes first.
“If you wake to find your sandals gone, do you worry?”
Dando answers his own question.
This is how the game works.
He says,
“Worrying, that is a waste of time.
Better to ask, ‘What else is possible?’ ”
Dando peels off his own sandal, waves it.
He insists, “Your sandals may not be gone at all,
only missing, while a generous hand mends
their worn edges.”
Now it’s my turn.
“If two days pass, then five, then seven,
and still no sandals, do you worry?”
I shake my head fast, ready to answer.
I tell Dando,
“It could be those generous mending hands
have stitched you a whole new pair of sandals.”
“Made of gold!” Dando adds.
Dando waves both his sandals.
I wave my sandals, too,
one right, one left.
“Lift them high,” Dando says. “High!
They are new, and glistening, our sandals.”
What Else Is Possible?
is a game about looking at things
in shiny ways.
LINES
I never know
where my drawings will go.
My twig tells me.
My twig leads.
I follow
by watching my twig
decide.
I’m only the holder
of the instrument that makes
picture-music
on our parched land.
My twig takes over.
The up-and-down lines
grow longer.
Are those camel legs?
The body of a tree?
Muma’s arms stretched,
praising?
I add a top to the lines.
Could this be
our square-shaped
home?
Maybe it’s the lane
where our clay house sits?
“Twig,” I say,
“show me.”
That’s the mystery,
the happy surprise,
of turning the sand’s surface
into something new
to view.
AGREEING
Dando and Old Anwar agree
on me.
I am raking plop.
I will do anything to stall this chore.
So I do something I should not do.
I pretend to be working hard so I can
listen.
Behind the stall fence,
seeing through its slats.
A good view.
It’s not right to listen
when my ears haven’t been invited.
But my ears can’t help it.
They’re doing what ears are meant to do.
Old Anwar and Dando parcel hay,
gather grain.
Old Anwar says, “Amira is a special child.”
“You are right,” says Dando.
“My daughter has a glint about her.”
Old Anwar tosses corn pellets.
Our chickens flock,
collect,
peck,
take.
“Amira gets her glimmer from you,”
Old Anwar says.
To hear better, I stop raking.
Our chickens, are they listening, too?
Old Anwar asks Dando,
“Do you remember your boyhood?
You were filled with such curiosity.
A story-lover.”
“I do remember,” Dando says.
Old Anwar asks,
“Do you recall who taught you to read?”
Dando bows,
showing Old Anwar his respect.
“I was Amira’s age.”
Old Anwar chuckles.
“You were a boy always searching.”
Dando’s eyes soften,
finding joy in good memories.
SEEING THE SAME SUN
My rake’s fingers scrape dirt,
giv
ing off the sound of hard work.
Old Anwar says,
“There is something else Amira gets from you—
farm sense.”
Dando agrees.
“That child is good with sheep and wheat.
I believe she could
have a gift for learning letters.”
I can’t even pretend to work now.
My ears are eager to do their job.
I rock my rake’s handle,
but it’s hardly moving.
“Teach Amira to read,” Old Anwar says.
My raking has stopped.
I do not want to miss a word.
My cow plop pile has begun to call flies
to its rising fumes.
They’re happy to play among the moist,
lingering mounds.
Dando sets his hands
at Old Anwar’s back,
gives a playful tug.
“Old Anwar,
you and I see the same sun on the horizon.
It would bring me such pleasure
to teach Amira to read,
but I cannot convince my wife of this.”
Old Anwar places his hand
at my father’s waist,
echoing the gesture.
He says,
“Your girl’s glint should be allowed to
shine even brighter.”
My father nods,
agreeing.
Old Anwar and Dando,
seeing the same sun.
BROKEN-BOTTLE DOLLY
Leila has found a cracked plastic bottle,
an abandoned shell.
The bottle’s clear body is packed with dirt,
thick with goz,
filled with brown,
right up to its neck.
A swatch of green makes this baby doll’s dress.
Leila loves her, even with no head.
Even with no arms or legs.
Even with the tiny, jagged crack at her bottom,
leaking grains of goz.
Soon that dirt-filled dolly has a name.
Leila proclaims her toy’s birth.
Smiles at the sight.
She invents silly wispy voices
that bring her baby to life.
“Sweet little Salma.”
Leila murmurs and sighs at the newborn
nestled in her stumpy arms.
TOY BATTLES
“I found it first!” shouts Gamal.
Leila squeals, “No, mine!”
Gamal and Leila each yank
to claim the cracked,
plastic,
left-for-dead bottle.
Leila cries, “My child, my baby.”
“Mine!” claims Gamal.
He pulls loose the green sheath dress.
Snatches the bottle from Leila’s hungry hands,
runs off fast.
Gamal won’t look behind him, at us.
He settles on a patch of sand
far enough from Leila so that she can’t chase him
on her turned-in feet.
He’s escaped,
but is close enough to taunt Leila.
Vrrraahhoooom comes from someplace deep
in this greedy boy
as he rams baby Salma on her side.
Vrrraaaahhoooms that broken bottle
back and forth on the sand.
He sneers.
“This is no baby doll! It’s my jeep!”
EYES
Ever since Dando told me
of war,
and Muma, of the Janjaweed,
I’ve noticed
a strange shadow
in people’s eyes.
This dim, shapeless thing
has been lurking.
This shaded expression
that has no name
has settled itself
in glances and unspoken foreboding.
I look closer,
trying to know
what is in
the eyes of my village neighbors,
and of Dando and Muma.
It’s something
other
than concern about the hiding moon.
In time, I see.
Eyes tell
what is inside.
Muma and Dando,
they speak,
they work,
they move about each day
with their regular
here-and-there.
But their eyes say
something is not regular.
Their eyes confess fright,
as if every breeze,
every shadow,
every leaf
whispers a warning.
I look and look
so deep
into
the odd,
scared,
uneasy
that has settled in so many eyes.
When I dare to cut a stare,
then hold the gaze
of a grown-up,
my own eyes ask,
Why?
DOTS
Twig, you are lazy today.
All you do is poke.
Dot.
Dot.
Tiny messes on the sand’s surface.
Dot.
Dot.
Dot… dot… dot…
There is so much wind today.
That is good.
It can sweep away these nothing-dots.
Good-bye, lazy twig-pokes!
Lots of dots
blow down
to just a few.
But, aakh—then I see
the possibilities
in dots.
Wait, wind! Please stop!
You are lifting away
what could have been:
Bird footprints.
A spray of stars.
Eyes peeking out from a wall of goz.
Split beans, spilled.
So many wonders arise from
Dot.
Dot.
Dot.
I wish I’d seen them sooner.
WAKING, WALKING, WATER
We rise
before the sun
pierces the night.
Before dawn has a chance
to press
on our heads,
baking us
with unrelenting heat.
Muma rouses me,
sounding as crisp as wind.
“Amira, come.”
Does my mother ever sleep?
We wake
to walk,
many miles there,
many back.
Taking so long, this journey.
Slowly
we go
for water.
Our plastic jugs are empty on our way
to the river’s gate.
But, aakh, the return.
Aakh, the ache
in our backs,
through our legs.
The riverbed fills our empty, wanting vessels
with the wet,
sloshing promise of water.
Weighing heavily,
pulling our pails
down,
down,
down,
bending branches into arcs
that make
the ache
stay
all day.
FAMILY PICTURES
Muma:
strong face,
beautiful,
square.
Her toob
a column of twig-strokes
I strike in the sand:
sweesh-swoosh!
sweesh-swoosh!
Spilling from all sides
of her stands-so-proud body,
covering every part of my mother.
Except for her wide, loving eyes.
Except for her wide-fingered hands.
Except for her wide, flat feet.
Two stretched shapes
peeking out from the twig-strokes that ma
ke
sweesh-swoosh.
Dando:
body,
a box.
Face,
so oval.
Stubbled chin,
a triangle
decorated,
dot… dot…
dot…
to show hair
trying to grow.
Dando’s eyes,
wells of wisdom.
Dando,
who sees what is possible in me.
I craft his wise eyes by digging
two more dot-dots,
deep.
Leila:
all of her bowed.
Legs,
arms,
neck,
ears.
Arcs,
curves,
half circles