August 16, 2024

How Is Your Devastation Today?

by Fady Joudah

They say the father refused
to be a collaborator. And the mother,
a physician, a specific kind of witness,
had looked at her killers the wrong way.

— Fady Joudah

How Is Your Devastation Today?

Did a particular morning birdsong visit it?
Did innocent grumbling
about a meaningless desire
that has become the meaning of all desire
from one of your kids distract you from it?
Is your espresso machine working fine?
Did a photo or video
of a father sculpting
the rigor mortis of his murdered twins
and their mother sink you?
They say some NGO had helped
throughout her high risk
pregnancy during a war of extermination.
They say the killers had been following
her progress to eliminate her
ninety six hours after C section,
on the day the birth certificates were issued,
a day after the twins were given names.
They say the father refused
to be a collaborator. And the mother,
a physician, a specific kind of witness,
had looked at her killers the wrong way.
She thought they were shit.
They say she hails from my hometown
as does her mother who was also killed.
They say the twins were fraternal.
And the building had sixteen apartments
but only theirs on the top floor was hit.
They say the killers are unconcerned
with your forensic evidence
since they made partner in the archive.
And when my mind drifts
to the Burghers of Calais, they say,
at least those had their lives spared
after guns to their heads
fired blanks. Which changes nothing
of what has become of their faces.

Fady Joudah is the author of […] and six other collections of poems. He has translated several collections of poetry from the Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. He was a winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007 and has received the Jackson Poetry Prize, a PEN award, a Banipal/Times Literary Supplement prize from the UK, the Griffin Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Arab American Book Award. He lives in Houston, with his wife and kids, where he practices internal medicine.

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