Three Poems
vaudeville to find each other
for Maryam Imam-Gabriel, and all my Wet Hot Arab American Summer loves
I has no significance until it becomes the you to whom eternity incessantly speaks and says: you shall, you shall, you shall.
~Kierkegaard, Works of Love
If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution.
~Emma Goldman
whatever the breath’s got the elbow’s
got it too, in spades, crooked wa made for sharing,
for strolling down the street wa knowing that street’s holding
us up, or down, or somewhere just on the level plane,
until we decide to dance, steal a little flight
from reality wa all the bounds that ground’s obsessed
with, until we wave our hands wa grin like fools,
wa the song that only we are hearing hollers love
is the only solidarity i’m interested in, wa says so
in our language, our foot language, our elbow language,
our curly language, our shell language, wa our people
are the ones that make it meaning wa not just
language, wa we’re failing, of course, so spectacularly
it turns around wa looks like beauty, which smiles wa looks
like the way we strut towards the pizza place, all of us,
finding new dance moves every time we laugh, wa every new
move is one towards freedom, wa every new move is one
towards freedom, wa it just looks like a beautiful day is all,
so why bother with texts that reject our eyes, why
not focus on the I’s that take our hands to skip down streets
that don’t want us there, bas oh well, we’re here, and giving gravity
a run for its money, wa money’s never running for us, so we
wave that cane, doff that cap, our objects of air wa our air irreplaceable,
ours til the day we die and meet again on a different plane, less level
bas no less filled with us, ana mean to say my people, my people,
our moves toward freedom are freedom, wa my people there’s no one
ana want to move with bas you, wa my people
there is no one ana want to revolt with bas you, wa my people
there is no one
ana want to dance with bas you, all of you,
gleeful termites all of us, fucking the wood up until the gallows
crashes to the ground wa we spit a new bad curse to shock
the world to bettering wa back towards dancing,
all of us our spines a guide
towards love.
On learning Palestine does not exist
The news comes quick, like a bird against the window pane. “Thank god!” I say, mopping the sweat from my brow, a tenor-relief. I slip out of my clothes, set my house on fire, dance my way to the bank. “Sorry,” I explain to the teller, smiling sympathetically, “I cannot pay for that loan, as I do not exist!” Skip into the street, hop into a stranger’s car. Hey, who took my car??! Couldn’t have been me- I don’t exist! Sorry, sorry. Wrong nightmare. (My face carefully frozen into an innocent’s mask.) Into the supermarket I go, grab armfuls of those little packets of chocolate donettes, waltz back out. “Don’t worry,” to the cashier, “insurance will cover an act of god, if not a robbery.” I yank the payphone to my ear, practically sing “Sorry, Kate! I won’t be able to make it to your wedding. I seem to have developed a bad case of ephemerality. I don’t think I will recover- perhaps forget you ever thought you knew me.” Click! Farewell, RSVP’s! Farewell, whooshing deadlines! Farewell temporality! Hello never, hello always. I spit gleefully on cars. Throw rocks. Bust open the fire hydrant, bust open the button-down in the freezing cold. My imaginary chest begins to turn blue. When my friends and family are angry with me, I simply walk away; fiction does not owe anything to reality! I can’t believe I ever thought myself a body. Can’t believe I ever thought myself solid enough. Shivering in the cold, when the electricity has gone, I remind myself: fiction does not owe anything to reality. But doesn’t reality owe a little something to fiction? A bite to eat? Some warm water? Some cool water? After a while I stop sticking my tongue out at passersby, because they stop looking shocked. After a while, night soaks in and doesn’t leave. Maybe I like it. Maybe it’s too lonely. Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to anyone that wasn’t me. In the abandoned parking lot, each space is occupied by a single Palestinian, all of us looking straight ahead, no one touching. No solidarity with wisps. No community in illusion. I touch myself and wonder if I’m still there. The fly that won’t leave me alone reminds me someone, at least, believes in me, and that I am sweet. That’s enough. Enough. Enough. That’s enough.
zuihitsu with $53.26 in my bank account
i’m hungry today.
this little pouch of stomach i’ve still got
is singing mightily, launches
into that clear green solo that made me feel
at home in my self for the first time.
i want to die like a rich boy, drowning
in a lake that bears my name.
i’m considering selling plasma.
i told everyone i was going to drive to you.
the long thin fingers of the state
want to mark me up and file me
away. how i wish i did not feel
so quieted by dollar bills and account
balances. on the beam, i slip
out of my shoes and heel-toe, heel-toe to the edge,
then channing-tatum-hip-thrust-turn,
then pony-by-ginuwine-slide back along
as the beam grows thinner, thinner, sharp as the blade
of a razor, slices my lovely feet in half and i fall.
how my mind drifts backwards from stability towards
hunger, familiar gurgling mix of empire and empired.
the owner smiles, “looks like you couldn’t quite cut it
here. looks like you’ll be walking with half-soles now.”
and in a different, better dream he wants me. he kisses
my feet. in whatever dream i’m trapped in, he just says,
“we take cash, card, or traveler’s check.”
i’m learning how to save. i’m scrimping. i’m desireless.
i’m getting good at bellycrawling.
Fargo Tbakhi
Fargo Tbakhi (he/him) is a queer american-Palestinian performance artist from Phoenix, Arizona. He is the winner of the 2018 Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize, a 2020 Desert Nights, Rising Stars Fellow, and a Pushcart Nominee. He is touring with his first full length solo performance work.
Twitter: @YouKnowFargo