Being Muslim
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O father bringing home crates of apples, bushels of corn, and skinned rabbits on ice.
O mother boiling lentils in a pot while he watched fight after fight, boxers pinned on the ropes pummeling each other on TV.
And hung on the wall where we ate breakfast an autographed photo of Muhammad Ali. O father who worshipped him and with a clenched fist pretended to be: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
O you loved being Muslim then. Even when you drank whiskey. Even when you knocked down my mother again and again.
O prayer. O god of sun. God of moon. Of cows and of thunder. Of women. Of bees. Of ants and spiders, poets and calamity. God of the pen, of the fig, of the elephant. Ta’ Ha’, Ya Sin, Sad, Qaf.
God of my father, listen: He prayed, he prayed, five times a day, and he was mean. [End Page 1159]
Hayan Charara is author of two books of poems, The Sadness of Others and The Alchemist’s Diary. His work has also appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Michigan Quarterly Review, Chelsea, Literary Imagination, Siècle 21, American Poetry: The Next Generation, Present/Tense: Poets in the World, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, and Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Arab American Poetry. He was born in Detroit.
