Iraq

Iraq


You drain the words
out of my famished mouth
when you scream,
a sun-drenched cry of dripping dates
and palm-green nostalgia.
You, a thought in the womb
before birth,
And all the lines of crimson
of afterlife,
a bosom of Tigress-scented compassion,
thrown across a desert
of aimless caravans.
You, a wan wanderer, in the pages
of my history...
Did you know that,
your rains washed away my name,
minutes after baptism,
tattooed tomorrow's memories
for eternity...?
But then you turned your face east...
away from me...
Do you recognize me? ...
I am the homeless child that seeks
your amputated arms for refuge,
a beggar of identity amidst
your grains of blood-drenched sands.
Why have you lost me
when I had hung on to the trains
of your abbai,
through all the wars,
all the sores...?
Left my minarets of war-torn memories
to crumble into oblivion...
my faith in humankind disemboweled.
You are the truth
-if it ever existed,
belief, when it is all I know.
I know you now
like I know God.
For you are the entity they forbade,
the remnants of the game they played,
the devastated I...

For my beloved Iraq...

Zaineb Alani
39 years old

I'm an Iraqi, living in the US,
who survived two wars growing up;
the 'war of attrition' with Iran,
and the first Gulf war.
I now live in America