In this place I’m called Defne
and the flag is red
and the music is different
and Grandmother says
not to call her Dapîr anymore.
Father rests in a garden of rock
and Mother goes
with men on a boat.
When she calls Grandmother’s phone
the smell of zolobia
which is the smell of her hair
gathers in a corner
I can’t reach. When I dream
of her, her hands are circles
without fingers and I shake
and shake but they assure me
the bombs are gone because
I carry seven coloring books
for the seven hills
of home and if I never speak again
those hills will become
my brothers’ faces: dark mouths
and darker eyes to speak for me.
I learn Turkish words
but cannot sing them and
if I could I’d pray, the mosque
called Merve might listen
and open its blue doors
and call me beautiful
and feed me shfta
and hold me by the name
I was born against,
that everybody has forgotten.
The war that brought us here
will not return us home.
Grey Sparrow Journal 