<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">All-American Ghazal</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;"> </span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">On our first date, I admit I haven’t left since arriving to this country.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">So, of course, being dramatic, I became a poet’s country.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">Years after divorce, I lost a custody fight, in part, because of</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">my status—so, indeed, a free country.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">Pho in the South End. Oxtail in Queens. Tinned fish. Cannoli in</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">Little Italy. No-contact delivery. The food of my country.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">Fifty or so provincial patches of grass—upon closer look—leaves. </span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">The edge, where people live, frays in this country.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">“We can work on human rights while negotiating,” the Senator </span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">says, “the prospects of nuclear war in our country.”</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">I was born in the Philippines, so my native tongue is partisanship.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">I’m many parties. I’m made impartial by my country—</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">a professional, ministerial office holder. A biblical fortune.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">It’s libidinal, the we in the ballad that makes a land.</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">It’s provisional, the line that cuts through sand. I is a line</span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">with a place to stand. I is a framing device. What good is a nation. </span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">Parts of speech like mine fragment. Cut. Clean. I’m rightless </span><br style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 22px;">but I have capital. Charge me, Dujie, precis a person. </span><div style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></div><div style="font-size: 22px;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Dujie Tahat</span></div></div></body></html>