I was the wet cloth that kept the phyllo damp.
I was the rag that lifted and didn’t catch
the edges of things. I was lamplight.
In another place, I was shaina maidel.
Here, though, I was khokh- memory
and nots- space. I was khokhanots.
I was the kitchen, a whole geography
with borders of mother
and step-father. Bubbie was nowhere
here. She left herself
to be used by my hands. Something sticky—
I remember my place. The damp rag.
Sam’s dark skin shining through
thin sheets of dough like a frame
for me to enter. My mother, the baster,
scattering walnuts. We held
our breaths, Sam’s hands initiated
their curtain call: the placement of
dough on walnut.
Phyllo, diaphragm of breath. Phyllo,
second skin too easily aged by unsteady hands.
Curtain. Sash of sweetness.
This was my mother’s kitchen
on a Friday. It was almost Easter,
so we made paklava. It was
Pesach, so I couldn’t
eat it. Pulped walnuts
thrown on tin sheets.
Her voice cocooning the words:
Never buy them crushed!
I should write this down.
I’m too busy watching the maw
of phyllo laid down like a memory
to care about this recipe for myself—
I’m humming zucchinis—
my sounds long in Armenian.
No one minds squash any season.
I grow like this, keeping
my mind elsewhere. I don’t call to Bubbie
willingly. Without her, I know how I’m supposed
to move: All Armenian. We are doing the same things with our wrists
whether it is 1915 or no. Opening
our palms to cup something
paid dearly for. All words, papery layers of seed coats
stem out of the walnuts, manuscripts of black ink.
I crush them sideways
with the blade of my tongue.
I’m a good –nots. A good recipe
for what I am missing. I pull the cover
from a mirror. Memory space
meant only for one part of me.
Bubbie has never been
here. I dance and I sing
an Armenian dance, an Armenian song.
Why don’t you clap for me?
I say to her even though somewhere she might
actually be clapping. I know this
and still can’t see her making
a sound. There is an Armenian “I”
and a Jewish “I” and somewhere
there’s my body. The walnuts, shipwrecked
at the bottom of a syruped lake sit split
up on the tin sheet. Every one of my homes has its season.
Notes & Acknowledgements (Excerpt)
I was my own gravity. Enclosed in overlap, I occluded myself to feel like myself,
a bound thing, an ancestor of what I couldn’t feel. That oculus of a buried archive
dug down in the dark like a hole for me to enter as water. I wanted to be myself so
badly I made myself into a shape that had already promised to hurt me. So badly, I
shook the letters until they left me no choice but to announceknow what it felt like
to be unjust. To justify. I’d given up. I drowned myself in the
sounds To count her ribs, the iambics of her back breaking, I couldn’t make. I
asked myself to be long like bread between teeth. But now I am too tired to plead
like the water of me, the wound of me, andmy case. I confess, there is something
tragic in obeying I meant it even when I could a kind of becoming that blossoms
the longer it is ignored. not contain it, shouldn’t have tried. So I asked for the
person I buher her under apricot trees. I bless her like a promise. I loved most
inside me to leave.A lantern under their mausoleum. I make a gesture as if to II
danced and performed myself in all
the forms I could image myself into. If I tell you begin. I cannot think of
it. I cannot think of it this way my borders are not real,looping the diameter of
neck. She does not mind being a you’re forced to see the quasars spin, theorem. A
sentence is a theorem. She, an unfinished one. forced to see movement at the
edge I imitate the arcs of stars. Imperfect, never truly returning. of the atrocity
photographs that are so violent they’veeach pass. A shift so small it is
imperceptible at first, had to pull themselves from their time-
our bodies make each other under the pull of proximity. lines down into an unseeable mass.A
natural law. I am encoding a message only she can read. You’re forced to see
them move, as light, as My wrist flicks scatter the gods I called to bless. A lyri
dance. Dance, a mechanism of survival caught between absolute and absolution.
Circumcisiofor the Armenian people. Between battles, warriors religion from
proper heliocentrism to calf. A god unto would dance, their pinkies knittedherself.
Slain inheritance. My mother told me, be carefutogether, circling with the velocity
what you love. How could I not? O, arabesque of of a we I can’t access. This
we,Theachine of the beloved that turns her into antithesia we to honor their
survival, a we to defend the edges of Polar coordinates of self made manifesto of
other. the place you love with the outline of things Recursion of self and
self-conscious create the pitch of you make yourself into. What do you ask a
caravan hum. Doves babbling to each other like judges. I keep her of survivors of
survivors of survivors like a newborn abandoned in the shade, alive, waiting to b
except to survive? I asked them to stay and protected and
picked up by another. If this with whatever version of me I could manage, on the desperation, I don’t know. Later that evening, we made absurdity of the page so
we madzoon of her mother’s of
could dance in front of the gaps What else is there to say? …….,
their bodies made in the archives. I called to them’d I needed to know what it felt
like to be unjust. To justify. so you, reader, might see us dance, full of watert
her ribs, the iambics of her back breaking, of life, not spilled in the fields
the Turks like bread between teeth. But now I am too tired to made barren
from care, using the American Empire case. I confess, there is something tragic in
as an example of how. I asked myself a kind of becoming that blossoms the longer
it is ignored. to stay a little longer, just a little longer, inside the shape I buher her
under apricot trees. I bless her like a prinside the shape I’d tethered myself to,
until the vibration A lantern under their mausoleum. I make a gestuo of me
was too strong
to contain the mass I’d accumulated and I collapsed begin. I cannot think
of it this way. The blade, a curve a black hole, a point ofooping the diameter of
neck. She does not mind being a tension shelled in knowing. theorem.
A sentence is a theorem. She, an unfinished one. I’d left open the shroud of
my ancestral imitate the arcs of stars. Imperfect, never truly returning.
tongue. I couldn’t say I love you so I saidat each pass. A shift so small it is
imperceptible at first, it in cut fruits, just like my grandfather our bodies make
each other under the pull of proximity. had, just like he told me his father A
natural law. I am encoding a message only she can read. and his grandmother had.
I was taught how to makmeMy wrist flicks scatter the gods I called to bless. A
make silences, and then I taught caught between absolute and absolution.
Circumcision of myself how to make them visible. Still, I can’t say religion from
proper heliocentrism to calf. A god unto anything in my great-grandmother’s
herself. Slain inheritance. My mother told me, be careful dialect except with my
body,what you love. How could I not? O, arabesque of knife. this body that
survived through The machine of the beloved that turns her into antithesis. her
body’s survival. I opened the wounds of the names Polar coordinates of self made
manifesto of other. that hadn’t been spoken for generations and Recursion
of self and self-conscious create the pitch of
mispronounced them. What did you expect? hum. Doves babbling to each other
like judges. I keep her I wrote about places I should’ve beenike a newborn
abandoned in the shade, alive, and wanted revenge like it could cleanse picked
up by another. If this comes from mercy or me. Righteous in anger, I drew myself
apart like those desperation, I don’t know. Later that evening, we made
photographs of the genocide had taughtmadzoon of her moth eri
me to, destroyed myself away
from the air, from life, to live’d I needed to know what it felt like to be unjust. To
justify. as someone without ease. I laid down into the shapes I’d
seent her ribs, the iambics of her back breaking, and hoped would make me feel
less. Less guilty, like bread between teeth. But now I am too tired to less
alone, less. To miss it less. To miss Hayastan less. case. I confess, there is
something tragic in To miss life less. To miss being kind of becoming that
blossoms the longer it is ignored. someone without shame less, as if that longing
could lay I buher her under apricot trees. I bless her like outside my
body on a page. This was the
fallacy A lantern under their mauseum. I make a gesture as if t I clung to, wrote
into
my fingers rested on an ink that didn’t satisfybegin. I cannot think of it
this way. The blade, a curve the urge to know. All I knewlooping the diameter of
neck. She does not mind being a was that I couldn’t make it easy theorem. A
sentence is a theorem. She, an unfinished one. for you, reader. Show
you a spectacle the arcs of stars. Imperfect, never truly
returning. vwithout the cost of looking: I’m not here. Weeach pass. A
shift so small it is imperceptible at first, have erased the me that could have our
bodies make each other under the pull of proximity. written this. I turned to my
shame, A natural law. I am encoding a message only she can read. a shame that
was mostly my oppressors’ and said we makeMy wrist flicks scatter the gods I
called to bless. A so you couldn’t say No. Not me. caught between absolute and
absolution. Circumcision of You couldn’t redefine the stakes of agency with
shock. religion from proper heliocentrism to calf. A god unto Let’s hold our
pinkies high like we’re herself. Slain inheritance. My mother told me, be careful
mountains, holy, sacred, thewhat you love. How could I not? O, arabesque of
knife. Caucus Mountains, that we The machine of the beloved that turns her
into antithesis. are a we that never had to leave, never had to be this Polar
coordinates of self made manifesto of other. formulation of we
at all.
