The American Poetry Review

ON LANGUAGE AND MOURNING

I don’t remember how to say home/in my first language, or lonely, or light
—Kaveh Akbar

Two months before my grandfather died, he asked me to read him a poem of mine. We were at Summa Hospital. In some room. I did not want to read him a poem—because my grandfather was well read. Because he loved poetry. Because, as a child, he did not like me all the time. Because I would interrupt his reading with my play. Because my Arabic was clumsy—Americanized—and I wanted to communicate with him, I did, but felt that I couldn’t because he insisted that I speak Arabic. Because trying to speak to him in Arabic was difficult—I’d forget words I needed to convey a certain meaning and when I’d reach for those words, they wouldn’t land on my tongue the way I needed them to land, or as urgently as I wanted them to. Because eventually, we only spoke in formalities, never reaching below the surface of conversation.

Because he was dying.

And I did not want to disappoint him with my words, again.

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