and women, like the one I lift now,

how her hair unravels in a sheen

of copper, cold as water in my palms.

To My Unnamed Daughter

You would’ve turned twelve this year,

some time late November. When the rains come.

When the Tule fog starts to lift off the San Joaquin river,

drifting out over the orange groves with their fruit

frozen solid on the hard-packed ground, old tires

at the ends of rows lit with gasoline fires

to keep them warm. When I was twelve

my brother and I climbed our shingled rooftop,

looked out over country houses in a sea of fog,

with only their chimneys visible in the distance

as they, like strange flagless ships, fire smoke trailing,

steamed toward the far horizon. Everything

seemed possible. History was still being made.

We talked of riding Chinese junks in the Yellow Sea,

Arab dhows in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa,

entire continents just waiting for us to explore.

I never told my brother about you. He’s had enough –

his fourth child turned blue with a strangling cord

at birth, the nineteen months spent waiting for him

to die, and people saying Such a beautiful child, that Ethan.

And yet, my unborn, you never even had a name.

Just a month when you would’ve been born, and me, waiting.

Ajal

– the appointed time of death which Muslims believe God has determined for every individual; it cannot be delayed or hastened.

There are ninety-nine special names for God,

my son, and not so long ago I held you

newly born under a crescent moon,

and gave you the name which means servant

of God, and I did not speak of tanks,

the thunder of iron, missiles flying

over the rooftops of our city – I whispered

the call to prayer once in each ear.

It should not be like this. Abd Allah,

many years from now, your own children

should wash your body three times

after your death. They should seal your mouth

with cotton, reciting prayers in a wash

of light and grieving, a perfume of lemons

and jasmine on your skin.

It should not be like this, Abd Allah.

I wanted you to see the Ctesiphon Arch,

the Tower of Samarra, the Ziggurat of Ur.

I wanted to show you the Arabic language

written on the spines of the sawtooth mountains.

I wanted to teach you our family history,

and see where you might take it.

I cannot undo what the shrapnel has done.

I climb down into the crumbling earth

to turn your face toward Mecca, as it must be.

Remember the old words I have taught you,

Abd Allah. And go with your mother,

buried here beside you – she will know the way.

The Inventory from a Year Lived Sleeping with Bullets

Rifle oil, check. Smoke grenades, check. Desert boots, check. Plates of body armor, check. The list ongoing – combat patrols added, 5 Paragraph Op Orders, mission briefs, nights spent staring for heat signatures through the white-hot lens, lasers bore-sighted to the barrels they guide. The conceptual and physical given parallel structure.