Exile Elegy by Solmaz Sharif

Exile Elegy

Our phone would

rarely ring. I have no ear

          for the mu-

          sic here. They would

bury one then another, the eldest son dropping

in

the grave to

comfort the corpse, calling us

          months later

          because we were

exiles, were vagabonds, fugitives, past Sierras,

past

oil rigs

in Texas, or waiting for

          the windshield

          to clear of frost,

two expanding ovals where the Buick’s heat hit, our

eyes

opened to

kudzu, here where the dead can

          not reach us.

          Three thimbles with

her sweat, in the dresser drawer they emptied would, I bet,

roll,

clink, tongueless.

Gauze of soot, of skin sifted

          off her where

          she scratched her head,

licked her thumb to lift page after thin onionskin page,

cloaks

her mantle.

Portrait of Imam Ali,

          dead husband,

          dead son. She stuffed

plastic bags into plastic bags, clouds of them, some stuffed

with

cash. She who

pled Eat. pled Pray. said I pray

          for your soul.

          fasted, said Ask

Him, never once talked of love, or, fondly, My husband,

still

would that I

could lick the dust that like—I

          think it’s—mus-

          sic will not reach

us here, just wet my fingertip, run along inside

one

sock drawer

so that her sugar, Shiraz

          bits she tracked

          inside, I could

eat, lick off her plastic tabletop whatever fell

grain

by grain off

her tiny, tin teaspoon. Where

          her gold went,

          who gives a shit.

I claimed her sugar bowl, white floral veil she prayed in,

to

take once her

daily, daily things. Morning

          (one, even)

          to step up her

thinly carpeted steps, hear her dentures click and clap.

I

can’t hear that

music here.