Ya Sitto...

by dina omar

It begins to swallow you whole
Ya
Sitto
Like the green line
Swallows your home

Four months before
Our roles are reversed
It is now me
Helping you eat hot cereal
Helping you Go to the bathroom
Helping Comb your silver hair
I say help to help me cope
I say help because I think
I needed you needing me
More than you needed me
This
Teaches me
Love
You
Teach me
Love

And I see pieces of
You slowly travel from here
On earth
From a tangible
To a place far beyond
Our most exquisite imagination
This is what makes me believe
That God is in everything

You are now
In the places I cannot see

I will document how you
You grow little green tomatoes
Between cinders of wood
And pickle them for me in summer time

I will create a petrography in memory
Your fingers red from
Carving out pomegranates
Seed for us to eat
You made me laugh when you took out your
Fake teeth

I will emulate your simple salad
Of tomatoes
Onions
Mint
And olive oil
Trophy your flat eggs with zibda
Because this is the history I need to know

I will archive how
You spoke to god
I saw you asking him to make rain for your grapes
Asking Allah to make the grape leaves sour because
That’s the way
We your grandchildren like them

I will collect
And chronologically file your wrinkles
Especially the ones around
Your eyes when you smile
They look like currents in the Nile

This is the way
I will remember
You
Ya
Sitto

---

Dina Omar is an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley.