2 poems

Hajjar Baban

Ghazal Saying My Father’s Name Aloud

Could I forget how I, offering an extension, became the search?
There’s a gone light flooding in my mind and so I search

for something that usually not be wanting touch. Had I known
someone to replace the sounds, I would’ve tried and searched

to recover where they hid the rest of my memory but I might
have something to do with you. God’s search

for good + left. Though, I covered my whole body
in your skin– in my disappearance, it was your search

they were after. What they said: This is [ ]’s property,
and I woke still without address. I knew no country coming up of a search.

My Mother Told Me to Close My Eyes

So I stood with my father in a straightened photo
where it is now he still likes to carry
each ill-fated fight child imagining in his back
pocket when I lived with my father in his home I felt everyday
the beam collapsing on my living room. The conscious crawl
the extraordinary wriggle, my unchangeable tightfist kicking
our distance. I’d notice all God could say. He’d say right
now they are undeserving of light, for a moment I avoided
it, but I imagine how my back breaks where God decides
to shine when I left my house chained I saw my body shatter
like a collar, busy belonging to someone else all over
again and like the right man that God is, He chooses
my father starts to look more like himself
when I first broke a bone I watched for a feeling
hour the men try to push it back in.