Joumana Altallal: "Self-Portrait"

Self-Portrait
Wadi As-Salaam
 
        The last time a body is washed,
        scent of olive oil soap and tap water,
        two inseparable corpses:
        always a woman burying herself
        with camphor, lotus leaves, a steady hand
        in a land that swallows, all of Najaf
        is a graveyard
        of holy, holy, holy.

Afandi, Yusufi, Lalankee
 
        When Yusuf Afandi brought mandarin saplings
        from the island of Malta did he know
        they would be given so many names?
        to peel the skin of the afandi
        is to peel language, to place it in the mouth
        and let it run.
 
Okra necklace
 
        Even after Taita dies, Jiddou remembers
        to bring home bags of okra, dried and strung
        onto necklaces of thread.
 
Talisman: Prophet Yusuf’s Shirt
 
        When you (peace be upon you)
        tied this shirt
        around your brother’s hand
        did you know it was written
        the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars
        bowing, to be thrown
        in the well
        and still rise
        like water, to remember
        despite the dismemberment.

Joumana Altallal was born in Baghdad to Iraqi and Lebanese parents. After completing her B.A. at the University of Virginia, she began her M.F.A at the University of Michigan, where she is currently a second-year candidate. She works with Citywide Poets to lead an after-school poetry program for high school students in Dearborn, Michigan. Her work appears in Poets Reading the News, Mikrokosmos, and Alternating Current, among others.