Elegy for Teta
            ​1928-2000
Emily Jalloul

At six years old, I’m pulling at your hijab,
looking for the hidden wispy black hair.

You’re showing me how to
roll grape-leaves, how to thread needles,

giving me pictures of you and Jedi,
smiling with my father on your knee.

At twelve, I’m helping you practice for citizenship;
on Saturday afternoons, we lived between countries.

You’re teaching me French,
pulling strawberries from the fridge, fraise.

Then, the phone-call comes
too late at night.

EMTs pounding on your chest,
bare and exposed breasts

hugging your ribcage,
your uncovered hair,

exposed for me to see,
but now I don’t want to.

Your sons left the room--
they couldn’t stand the brutality.

But my mom and I, we stayed
to blanket you after revival.
​
What I remember from your death, habibite,
is everything.

​


















​

In a waiting room,
Jedi and I holding hands.

Dad and ‘am Nizar beckoned us,
walked arm-in-arm with Jedi

down a long, white hallway.
And I, believing you were alive,

walked confidently in front,
though I did not know where I was going.

My dad’s voice stopped me:
Baba, she died.

I turned and watched Jedi--
a man who demanded,

a man who never asked,
who never said please,

fall to his knees and weep.

About the Author: Emily Jalloul is a Lebanese-American MFA candidate in poetry at Florida International University. Her previous work has been published or is forthcoming in Juked, Origins, The FEM, and Yellow Chair Review. She lives in Miami, Florida, where she mostly spends time petting her cat or watering her plants. 

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