Interview with a Birangona
—8. After the war was over, what did you do? Did you go back home?
I stood in the dark
doorway. Twilight. My grandfather’s
handprint raw across my face. Byadob,
he called me: trouble-
How could you let them
touch you? he asked, the pomade just
coaxed into his thin hair
a familiar shadow of scent
between us even as he turned
away. Don’t come
back, he said I walked past his
turned-away back. Past fresh-plucked
lychees brimming
yellow baskets. Past Mother
on the doorstep sifting through rice flour,
refusing or told not
to look up, though the new
president has wrapped me in our new
flag: a red sun rising
across a green field. You
saved our country, he said. I said
nothing. The dark rope
of Mother’s shaking arm was what
I last saw before I walked away.
No. No. Not since.
by Tarfia Faizullah
from Seam
(Southern Illinois Press, 2014)