Anniversary Poem for Zohra

Dear Abundant Livers, As regular readers know, I post an anniversary poem for Zohra every year. Usually in December, occasionally in January (we have a complicated chronology). This year it's a bit late, but I think it turned out swell (and fwiw Zohra agrees). So... this newsletter is a poem. If you don't wanna read a poem, I get it/your loss! Next newsletter will be a spicy one, about how much I detest the "you can't be punk and a nazi" memes (spoiler: the very existence of the DK song strongly implies otherwise). But that's next week. This week, enjoy the poetry!

Thanks, Zack

PS the formatting of poems on Ghost is... not great. So, deepneding on how you read this, the breaks may be screwy. But that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Anyway... let's dive in!...

For Zohra, My Love, On Your Birthday, Our Fifteenth Anniversary, Our Second Wedding Anniversary

1.

You say that there is one song in the Hindu Kush, 

It’s enough, you say, 

pointing in the direction of music, the catalogs, the detritus,

you say, quoting the mountain: 

“You have more than one song? You idiots.”

I’ve had fifteen years with you, for another fifteen,

I’d throw myself across a room, under a cartoon anvil,

between a bullet and a baby Hitler, for twenty five more. 

For another fifty, I’d kick anyone out of art school, I figure

Every timeline has its problems.

Anyway, problems are someone else’s.

And I have one song. 

It didn’t thrill you when, in November, 

I voted for Paulie from Sheer Terror. 

Not that you don’t like Sheer Terror, or either Paul Bearer, 

but rather, you vote the third option

That is our cats, when they get together,

They’re independent, they party.

Absent Sanders, or Hasan Piker, 

or either cat on the ballot, 

All that was left was the bullet, so. 

Later, after the results arrived,

with one of the lesser sheer terrors 

once again the winner, as it were,

you dried your eyes, said “fuck it. Fuck them all. 

I don’t care.” 

Of course, that last part was you lying; 

from Flatbush cats to Vanderpump recasting,

You worry about what will happen 

to all of God’s little idiots

all the kittens with wide eyes and soft tushies

(if I could cure you from caring, I’d be a Zohrillionaire),

All the innocents, the non-idiot victims, 

all of those children annihilated 

in what can’t be mentioned in an anniversary poem

without being callous. 

(As if—as a Jew, as a Muslim, as your husband, 

as a brainsucker starving, on the scalp of America, 

after 20 years of occupation, then overnight abandonment, 

after Palestine, after Lebanon—

I could ever vote for either motherfucker.)

This poem was not supposed to be that, 

it was supposed to be this:

Happy anniversary.

Like a hope in Hell, like a kind of revenge.

as the wheel loves the shoulder. 

I love you

In these currents, I do not feel blessed. 

No one is unblessed. No one is cursed.

God does not make junk, Quran class teaches us 

God does make, or allows, evil, for reasons (I guess). 

Believing that there must be some justice, eventually, 

I feel lucky and preemptive.

For as long as temporary will hold, for your love, 

for your patience, for the music around your bones. 

Grateful to chance, subservient to God, 

rowing over the water as you count off, 

1-2-3-4,

I row.

2.

I am lucky, driving to 7-11, investing in Coke Zero

As you’re blasting Ladies Love Cool James

with the windows down, to the rush of December,

the suburban souls hitchhiking across four lanes, 

slowing only to avoid foxes (present company excluded),

while LL as well, hell, expresses

what the three of us wouldn’t do for our mothers.

You yourself are a knockout, and you have so much love, 

it affects the steering, it recenters gravity, 

makes the car electric, and my heart motorik, 

(though neither of us trust the Germans.

They’re the closest Europe has come to the British)

In your car, cruising the good ship Suburban,

We’re wind blowing through the curtain, 

pre-code, almost free, choosing to be classy,

Over a loop of Can’s “Hallelujah,” Cool James sounds incredible.

After all these years; a panther, a miracle, relatable.

Don’t call it a comeback, babe, it’s a relationship;

a marriage. Though one the age of an adolescent, 

and behaving accordingly.

3.

At home, we avoid the television, give Zakat like anything,

and take turns screaming. On the internet and elsewhere.

On the deck of the Titanic, we rearrange the orchestra.

When we’re feeling historically frisky,

We paint hijabs on all the French ladies,

We give Afghanistan back its diamond, its light of the mountain.

We get all of Jack’s future gals, still negative ten in 1997,

onto lifeboats stocked with SAG cards, and manned by present dads. 

You always transcend and loiter, 

you taught me (in no particular order)

Real Housewives, 

Middle Eastern scales, Chucky, 

Rumi, Ode to Billy Joe’s string arrangement, 

Carolee Schneemann, Five Below, 

the Monkees—the food court and paradise buffet. 

Only snobs go hungry.

Furthermore,

in you, I’m an unsinkable Titanic, 

a president adept at ducking, a cat grabber, with me singing 

“Flag Sitta’” to one, while you serenade the other, about her big butt, 

her smile, our around the way girl, a real cat power,

A big butt and a smile you can trust, just like her mama,

And all four of us pussies spinning, in exact accordance 

with the joy we’re permitted, grace allowing, iceberg pending.

I love your laughter and infectious vigour,

I love your adventurous interior

Your blazing, serious eyes, 

Your running man and your running up that hill, 

Somehow undiminished by vampiric culture. 

If we have kids, the boy’ll be Issac Mohammed, 

Lisa Angela Pamela Renee’ll be the daughter.

If we don’t have kids, whatever, I don’t care

LL says, “We got a lot of private jokes to share,” 

I nod, “yes, LL, that’s right, we do.”

You’re Oum Calthoum sophisticated, 

with Dory Previn patter,

You joke that your measurements 

are 36-36-36 and, in this, you’re lying, 

but you’re funny, with a body that’s serious,

And I love you.

If you were a bird, the sky would look at trees 

and they’d be jealous. If you were the sky, and birds 

were asked, “What's the best thing about being a bird?” 

“Flight” would come in a distant second, after “hanging out with Zohra.”

If I was LL Cool J, as soon as I heard you sing,

I’d change the first “L” to something more specific

If I were an atheist, in you I’d find religion.

If you were someone else’s wife, I’d fix that.

Again, I swear, I have one song.

4.

The crows are at the window, asking after you again,

beaks full of beautiful insects, of stilled butterfly wings,

They tell me about the bread you gave, laid out on the lawn,

they ask if they can come inside. 

I sing a prayer, that the hand of the Controller, 

The errant doodler, who writes the world. 

I pray to the author. As a hedge, I pray to the instrument, 

I hold out my palms, say, “Please, pen, don’t slip.”

In your own extensive collection of writing utensils,

you keep memory, like the recording angels in jinn form, 

truthful but wild; one part love, one part fury.

To honor this, my love is a contract. 

I’ll play the part of fumbling, sitcom cherub, 

blowing on the page and grateful. 

Or I’m the lawyer, with handwriting so fine it’s archaic.

Either way, the contract is binding, also music, and titled 

“All I want is you, in the world, even as it is,”

the notation, the stray notes of rowing,

derived centrifugal, suburban to paradise 

(where everyone will have your lashes, 

but at least we’ll be together).

This is music of sloshing promise, 

of blessed obligation,

a very romantic judge and jury, 

In tune with water rising; the ink will never dry 

and, baby, if I’m a contract, 

you’re a choir,

You’re the chorus, the bridge, and the pre-chorus,

The notes between the notes, and you’re also the notes. 

You’re as beautiful, absurd, and necessary

As every fairlite and fuzzbox sound ever.

You’re perfect, Zohra, the truest thing in a world that mostly isn’t.

If there’s another song, I don’t want to hear it.