The Good Arabs

By Eli Tareq El-Bechelany Lynch

Hassan hasn’t talked

to me

or anybody

since the day of green seas

and we reduce it to absence

but they said

it’s a changing in the weather

that signals more to come

and we’re trying to understand

but this isn’t a jump off the cliff

move

it’s not a change

built over time

I can tell this isn’t going

anywhere I want it to

we trade in seas for lakes and summon the ancestors

whose names we don’t always know

’cause family histories aren’t always recorded

maybe I need to jot down a list of names

of everyone who’s ever walked me home

called when I was alone

ever told me I’m acting like my shit don’t stink

because love is more than sweetness

when you grow up in an Arab family

when you grow up any kind

of working class

and any good Arab knows

you need to strive for the top

for the change in cars every two years

for the kinds of capitalisms we never critique

the generation before ours ate their colonial shame

tried to beg for mercy and only got a lesson in apathy

you get a car you get a car you get a car

but what about a lesson

in our own histories

our own urgencies

our own violences

any good Arab knows not to get too dark

because who knows what could happen

when you slip further away

from whiteness

and the view from the top of Mount Lebanon

any step up is a step down

for other people and yet

I’m saying we can’t do the job right

the statue of Harissa

looking down

with tears in her eyes a miracle

but you’re mistaken my friend, habibi

she isn’t happy

she isn’t well

ya Rab

I’m not religious

but I see our reflections

in her tears

and we’re starting to look

a little devilish

Source: The Good Arabs (Metonymy Press, 2021)