Terrorism

At a college in Dearborn,

Michigan, I read a poem

about watching girls

at camp hold their breaths

under the showers

so I could see

their breasts swell.

Some people call Dearborn

a hub of “terrorist” activity.

I’ve placed the word terrorist

between quotation marks

because “Arab” or “Muslim”

or “people who look like

the terrorists we fear”

is what they mean.

In the poem about the camp

I also use quotation marks

around the words

“pussy” and “chicken-shit,”

but for different reasons — 

I’m waiting in line

to jump over a dam

into a river where other boys

have drowned, and I hesitate,

until someone shouts

“pussy” and “chicken-shit”

and you don’t need me

to tell you what I did,

what I had to do.

A famous poet says

for a speaker to express

authority, he must possess

three virtues, one of which

is passion.

After the reading

a young man

approached me.

He turned out to be

the younger brother of someone

I knew and wrote

a poem about, a lifeguard

who saved a drowning girl.

The child pulled from the pool

could have been a boy — 

I don’t remember,

it doesn’t matter.

I care about what I’m saying — 

that matters. Passion

is a deep-seated conviction,

says the famous poet.

You need to believe

that I believe.

I told the young man

in Dearborn about his brother

saving a life, as if

he didn’t already know.

He listened, politely,

until I stopped talking

and then he said

I was out of line and had acted

inappropriately. How,

I asked. He said I shouldn’t

use words like that.

Which words, I asked.

He was getting flustered.

I asked him again.

I wanted him to say

“pussy” and “chicken-shit.”

He said I should not use words

like that in front of women.

By “women,” he meant

Arab and Muslim women.

Maybe he meant

all women. I don’t know,

I didn’t ask.

A lot of Arabs and Muslims

live in Dearborn.

That’s why some people

think of it as a hotbed

of Islamic terrorism.

The phrase “a hotbed

of Islamic terrorism”

should probably appear

between quotes every time

people use it, even if

they are Arab or Muslim,

like me. The other virtues

a speaker should possess,

says the famous poet,

are discrimination

and inclusiveness.

By “discrimination”

he means the speaker

should come to his position

without ignoring but considering

opposed positions,

and finding them wanting.

By “inclusiveness” he means

the speaker immediately

sees connections

between the subject at hand

and other issues.

Also, the speaker needs

to make the reader believe

he is doing his subject justice,

that he is relating it

to the world.

This makes his voice

communal, speaking not

for any community

but with the goal

of making communities,

the first of which is

that of speaker and reader.

The young man speaking

on behalf of Arab and Muslim

women told me that my poems

were “indecent”

and “immoral,”

that I should be ashamed,

that I was a terrible Muslim.

“Go fuck yourself,”

is what I wanted to say,

but — maybe he was right — 

so I smiled, I thanked him

for listening, and I told him

I loved his brother, and, “Please,

will you say I said hello.”