Window Games

My sister Fufu and I used to spend our afternoons
Tethered to the windows along the far side of our apartment
Watching the days pass as we age

Time moved breathtakingly slowly back then
As if someone had dipped our entire childhood in glue and set the mismatched pieces out to dry
As soon as she could walk, Fufu became obsessed with flying
So she threw things out of windows and I watched

First, it was the house keys and then my mothers dress
then a series of everyday items, all my father’s pens, and nearly a stethoscope one time
Every item that Fufu sentenced to death was never seen again
Every spoon, or doll, or book she chose to annihilate
Meant a swift and thorough end
That’s when the banging came

Quick successive bursts
A choir bleeding mouths
A series of screams both inside and outside of our apartment

I froze

It wasn’t the usual halu hum of drums
The windows rattled cold this time
I couldn’t stop looking at my mother
Face pressed to the ground
Arms pinning both my sister and I to her sides

We stayed there until the sun began to set
Playing dead in a highrise in Yemen

Years later in Philly, we laughed and sang
The worst behind us
Auties and uncles feasting at our table
An orphans communion
A group of Sudanese people
Far enough to forget the dessert

When the banging came
Everybody hit the floor
From the three-year-olds by the stairs
To the uncles in the dining room
Every face hit the carpet

Our bodies remember what our senses forget

It seemed absurd that we thought for a moment
the shots could reach us all the way in this safe place
Every person in that room had had to duck
Some point or another

Every child had had his first time like mine and my sisters and every parent
At different times before that
To a family of immigrants
The fourth of July sounds like a firing squad
Like a debt collector
Like a dictator coming to cull
It sounds like a sunset for the last time
Or it sounds like faces hitting the concrete but their voices still remaining
Still pleading
Still praying in the wrong language
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To know the loneliness of a lost home
Is to understand the desperation of a waiting tree
It’s parched trunk
The shattered earth replete with deep fissures where water use to run
Where children use to fall close enough to come back

But all its children are gone
Earth burnt to a crisp
Land covered in a fire that swallows everything
I find comfort in the notion that we don’t suffer alone

We look at our sparklers and party streamers
As the darkness began to settle
Stepped out on to the lawn to see the fireworks from afar
Marvelling at the light that filled the sky
Each new blast taking us further from the circumstances that brought us here
The brilliant lights splashed flowing colours across our window

In a distance, I could hear screaming or cheering both inside and outside my head
It’s what dying looks like
If you don’t know any better

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