The Good Arabs

Hassan hasn’t talked
to me
or anybody
since the day of green seas
and we reduce it to absence
but they said
it’s a changing in the weather
that signals more to come
and we’re trying to understand
but this isn’t a jump off the cliff
move
it’s not a change
built over time
I can tell this isn’t going
anywhere I want it to

we trade in seas for lakes and summon the ancestors
whose names we don’t always know
’cause family histories aren’t always recorded
maybe I need to jot down a list of names
of everyone who’s ever walked me home
called when I was alone
ever told me I’m acting like my shit don’t stink
because love is more than sweetness
when you grow up in an Arab family
when you grow up any kind
of working class

and any good Arab knows
you need to strive for the top
for the change in cars every two years
for the kinds of capitalisms we never critique
the generation before ours ate their colonial shame
tried to beg for mercy and only got a lesson in apathy
you get a car you get a car you get a car
but what about a lesson
in our own histories
our own urgencies
our own violences

any good Arab knows not to get too dark
because who knows what could happen
when you slip further away
from whiteness
and the view from the top of Mount Lebanon
any step up is a step down
for other people and yet

I’m saying we can’t do the job right
the statue of Harissa
looking down
with tears in her eyes a miracle
but you’re mistaken my friend, habibi
she isn’t happy
she isn’t well
ya Rab
I’m not religious
but I see our reflections
in her tears
and we’re starting to look
a little devilish

Copyright Credit: Eli Tareq El-Bechelany Lynch, "The Good Arabs" from The Good Arabs.  Copyright © 2021 by Eli Tareq El-Bechelany Lynch.  Reprinted by permission of Metonymy Press.
Source: The Good Arabs (Metonymy Press, 2021)