Her Daughter
Hear—Mirza Ghalib
Baghdad, April 8, 2003
Four years younger than mine,
her daughter lies under the rubble.
She stands at the edge of it,
watching the men lifting one stone,
another, till out of the crater
they gently lift somebody's
body, a body she now
sees is female. She tries to recall
what her daughter was wearing,
but no scrap of clothing remains
on it. Whose body is it? She sees
no face. She sees no head.
At the edge of the crater she stands
while they swaddle the body in blankets
a neighbor has brought. Through
the blasted streets she calls
a name that gets lost
in the rattle of gunfire, a name
no one hears as they pull
from the rubble her daughter's
head, hair twisted round like
a root-wad, not blonde
like my daughter's, not waking
up as my daughter will be, being safe
on this morning in Texas, beginning
to brush her hair after her shower,
her face in the mirror as perfect as
always I see it, the fair skin
she wishes had South Asian
dusk in it, not southern
sun from the fields of her mother's
line, as she examines
the scar on her temple,
the chin she believes looks
not quite smooth
enough, while her fingers
scroll over its surface
as if they are translating
Urdu, word after
unsteady word of a ghazal
that she must recite
today, all the while fearing
her voice will fail
even as she tries
to fill up the silence
with Ghalib's desire
to see, lost in the blaze
of the mirror
that holds her,
the face of the Beloved.