in the throat before a cry. It is my father,
changing his god because my mother asked.
After the baptism, his curly hair wet and
cold like an animal caught out in the snow.
Fleeing from my grandmother, who rushed
after him with butcher knives not yet wiped clean
of pigeon meat, the untucked bits of her
hijab licking the air behind her like a shadow.
You need to go back to Egypt, she had said.
Sometimes, home is not a home, but a claw
lodged inside you. A river you step into because
it holds light. You are waist deep, wading
in what mauls you and also
what loves you. You leave home and become
riptide. What I have become has beheaded
what I was before. I carry the head, knocked
loose and bodiless, as I would a plum,
careful not to crush it in my palm, careful
not to gag its cry.