My Mother’s Body, and: Trying to Live

Abstract

My Mother’s Body*, and: Trying to Live* Charif Shanahan (bio) MY MOTHER’S BODY* I wash the face first, A heavy swipe from topTo bottom, not at all gentle, Then trace the spongeAlong the length of her nose, Water slidingDown each cheek, then falling Over the edge of herBody—resting, quiet, bare, Open to being,Only now, without condition— A net of fishCut open from below, freed Of its own purpose.I remove each ring and, speaking, To myself, if not to her,Slide my fingers through the hair She had workedTo keep straight, a damp heaviness I palm, and beginTo braid each curling tress, Tying herBack to herself— Turning her faceI scrub the back of the neck, A field of serpents, reachingInto the braids, an empty Wide desertWhere I will place her body Into fire, releasing her,Freeing her from her own Containment. [End Page 566] Cutting the wide linen cloth Into thin strips,Bindings for each limb, I wrap the neck, the slowDivision of a body from its mind. Quiet now. Quiet.I circle the table three times, Certain not to liftMy hand from the fact of her And study her breasts,Still peaked, her nipples inverted, Areolas as two purple songs.I cover them. I tie the cloth Tight around her chest,And lifting each arm, loop the cloth Around the length of each.Dark tips of fingers extend west and east. Why should her body speakWithout its breath? I am tired of listening. Quickly, I bind each foot,Each ankle and leg, and keep open My eyes as I clean the center of her,Hairless, honorable, dead— Her Qur’an calling back to me,Its splayed pages lifted by a wind Which has come from nowhere,The blackness of her body Melting into my hands,Which know nothing. [End Page 567] TRYING TO LIVE* I climb the narrow stairs to my attic bedroom.The riad next door is so close I reach my handthrough the one small window to touch it.Spread my fingers wide against the stone,stretching each in its own direction. Far awayI hear an old man singing a song to God.My ego keeps me alive, not ready to give up its chance.I climb down the stairs and wander the medina.Sit at a café near the souk and order mint tea.I want to enter my life like a room. Blue walls.A floor painted green. Three large windows. Light.I study the faces that pass. Count each one.It is a long time before my eyes meet another’s. [End Page 568] Charif Shanahan CHARIF SHANAHAN is author of Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing (forthcoming from Southern Illinois University Press), winner of the 2015 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Prize. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and a semi-finalist for the “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize, his poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Apogee, Barrow Street, Boston Review, Literary Hub, The Manhattanville Review, The New Republic, The Baffler, and Prairie Schooner, which awarded him the 2015 Edward Stanley Poetry Award. His translations from Italian have appeared in A Public Space, Circumference, and RHINO Poetry, among other publications. A Cave Canem graduate fellow, he holds degrees from Princeton University, Dartmouth College, and New York University, where he earned an MFA. Formerly Programs Director of the Poetry Society of America, he is currently a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Morocco and was recently named a Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. Footnotes * Editor’s Note: “My Mother’s Body” by Charif Shanahan was inadvertently omitted from the special section Contemporary African American Poetry in Callaloo 39.2 (2016). The Callaloo staff regrets this omission, which was due to a clerical error. * Editor’s Note: “Trying to Live” by Charif Shanahan was inadvertently omitted from the special section Contemporary African American Poetry in Callaloo 39.2 (2016). The Callaloo staff regrets this omission, which was due to a clerical error. Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press