Summer/Fall 2021, Issue 19
One day, before Jassim’s death, Warqa, the dearest of his pigeons, landed above the cote and entered through the tower’s upper entrance, there in the Ashar district in southern Iraq. It was a bit after three in the afternoon when Jassim glimpsed the two wings beating slowly and descending. It was her, Warqa, returning home three years after she had set out on her journey [. . .]
There was a nearly suffocating smell: smell of old walls, it struck me like the melodies that resurrect in the heart the deepest memories. You know: on that sofa I wept so much when I knew you wouldn’t come back. And today, in the doorway, my soul of that time took hold of me; in an instant my entire past returned. . .
The night before the wedding she’d tried on her wife’s floral party dress, which was of course too tight and too short on her. That she did this—putting a dash of rouge on her cheeks, a black line on her eyelids—might have caused consternation, but her bride-to-be just found it (so she said) funny. [. . .]
I sleep and everything sleeps. The bread dough sleeps in the bowl covered with a damp cloth. The jars are sleeping in the cupboard, each a womb of enameled glass. Quinces sleep, household suns, on embroidered bridal linens in the hope chest. Tomorrow you’ll be fine. Between dreams, I hear you. Tomorrow, you’ll run, as if this were nothing. It’s just that you’re growing. . .
iPad’s camera adjusted so she was silhouetted, surrounding flat light showing only the outline of a form. Could have been savasana. A cloud moved, another Zoom self-adjustment, there was her face again. But it wasn’t early savasana. No one could go that long without blinking. I threw on a robe, turned my video on, and unmuted myself [. . .]
The low whistle of the northbound train broke a silence made of the shovel’s grating, of birdsong, of the rasp of Eva’s breath. Maud frowned at her daughter, then stepped again on the shoulder of the shovel, forcing the blade into the March soil. This plot of ground, heeled in against a patch of woods, had been worked for garden at one time. […]
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