Lessons in Isolation
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When I was in elementary school mymother belly danced in the front yard while
I practiced soccer tricks She snaked through the grassbarefoot brown-bellied
fully adorned in purple and blue bedlah Her hands coiled andunfurled above her head her zills crowned her thick black mane Her coin hip scarf sounded like Sizdah-Bedar rain
My English stepfather framed herin his camcorder Some nights in her bedroom she taught me and my brother isolations:
the washing machine the figure 8the shimmy We took turns wearing the coin scarf
We compartmentalized our bodies Each partperformed its own independent movement
simultaneously with the other partsI was angry at my mother the first time
she warned us to veil that we are Iranian:our house was bordered by a
rural town of people who didn't want us I didn't listen and each time
a classmate made fun of me my tongue coiled a bit more. [End Page 111]
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Nichole Perkins and Naana Orleans-Amissah at the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Oxford University, 2016
Photograph by Linda Smith © 2016
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Nicholas Nichols and Gabriel Ramirez at the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Oxford University, 2016
Photograph by Linda Smith © 2016
[End Page 112]
DANIELLA TOOSIE-WATSON is a poet, visual artist, and educator in New York. She has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and InsideOut Detroit Literary Arts Project. She is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program.
