Rachelle Cruz

Notes On the Round of Return
2/18/11 9:19 pm, Riverside, CA

after Ahmed Abdel Mu’ti Hijazi and Romeo Cruz

Last night I fought cobwebs from my eyes / Last night ‘the House strips funding from Planned Parenthood’

Pearl Square Bahrain/ Tahir Square Egypt / Madison Wisconsin / rained faces call for more than a word /change to land on

The song of mouths / Coyotes yowl outside near the 60 freeway/ I click the button / type my name address email phone number / forward to others / Read/ Write/ Read / The song of mouths

This mouth / Ahmed Abdel Mu’ti Hijazi / A prison is not always a fence and a metal door / It might even be spacious, unbounded…

Prison Is / Prison Is /In Cairo / a father’s left eye blind / his son / a voice crackling against the prison of sky and silence / In Riverside / Silence in the hallways / Silence in the notebook / The freeway rumbles on…

Prison might be an eyelid with dark lashes that we close and tuck under the skin / as we ruminate a dream of life in silences / and hiddeness.

I am singing his round of return / his papyrus song /As if a voice of some kind were calling / My father sends me a poem about Egypt / the father I write about who writes me

Will their cries be more dire/ than their muzzein up that mosque that calls the millions to prayer / to kneel and bow to the ground / looking to the East?

My father’s hand writing / breathing into a Naga sunset window / signs carried above earth to the sky / In Manila / crying Marcos Down! / the night yellow with tear gas / My father’s hands stained / the ink from newspapers he wrote / I am writing this / he has written this / we will write / As if a voice of some kind were calling

Another pharaoh fell to the ground / like the crows but still the pyramids stood mocking us / that we should hold the ground / otherwise they will come tumbling down / if we keep talking of new ideas