Hedy Habra (Western Voices 2020)

Exclusive: Western Voices, 2020: Edited by Scott Thomas Outlar

Bio: Hedy Habra has authored three poetry collections, most recently, The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019), finalist for the USA Best Book Award. Tea in Heliopolis won the USA Best Book Award and Under Brushstrokes, was finalist for the USA Best Book Award and the International Book Award. Her story collection, Flying Carpets, won the Arab American Book Award’s Honorable Mention and was finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. A fourteen-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, her work appears in numerous publications. Her website is hedyhabra.com

Mid-April Snow, 2020

Some call it flurries. I prefer

            les derniers soubresauts

de l'hiver, a moribund winter's

            last jolts, refusing to give up

                        its last snow- flaked breaths.

            It's still breathtakingly beautiful:

 an anachronic realm

                        reminding us of our last

            moments, of how we resist,

                        thinking ourselves invincible,

how we long to make our autumn

            stretch, exercise our muscles,

balance our meals, try to finish

            our manuscripts in progress,

                        lest that winter be the last.

            This year in particular, I took

solace in daffodils sprouting

                        in the mud, indigo hyacinths'

            vivid arabesques, crisp as ever,

                        as though nothing had altered

the rhythm of nature. I didn't get

            to enjoy my magnolia's early

blossoms for long, a harbinger

            of hope whitening the naked

                        branches, its delicate flowers

            eager to dance to comfort the tree,

even before a single leaf emerges,

                        insufflating greenness. Head-bent

            under fluffy flakes, petals wither

                        at their birthplace awaiting

to be scattered by the wind.

Initiation

Every morning my Nonna used to read the Gospel

in Arabic, oftentimes out loud, with perfect diction

and the deepest conviction.

I knew who to ask when I needed help with my

Arabic qawaeid grammar. My older brother helped

with my insha writing, but mostly with math.

During the long afternoons, she’d move from

her wheelchair to the sofa to read novels in French

by Delly or Max du Veuzit that I’d check out

from my convent school library.

I still remember the half smile she wore

as she immersed herself in alternate worlds,

allowed for once to daydream.

Married at sixteen and widowed at twenty-one,

her teenage heart must have beaten at the compass

of mine and I wonder if like me, she ever scrolled

down to the final pages to witness the characters’

only kiss. 

Don’t Think She Fools Me

Don’t think she fools me when she consults me for a broken wrist, a cut or a sore neck, does she think she fools me? I wonder...  Always complains when her period is late, when her nose bleeds, when it pours outside, when the phone is silent, then she wonders should she wear her strapless shantung blue dress tonight and how much she’d spend on her next trip to Vegas. She thinks I’m her seer, her healer, confidant, but I’m none of this, really, just a good friend, a patient listener. I’ve never said a word to convince or dissuade her, never came up with the right answer, yet she kept saying how instrumental I was to her sanity, I was so o oh important, she’d whisper when she’d bring me close, real close to her, lips rubbing my nose until I’d close my eyes and purr.

Or How the Mirrored Pond Suddenly Speaks

From my bedroom window,

I watch the rain sowing eyes

on the surface of the pond,

each drop drowning

inside maddened ripples

funneling vertiginously

into its murky bottom

each eye a fallen star sparkling

dimples over dark skin

its mutable constellations

redesigning an alphabet

for me to decipher.

Setu, April 2020