Shahen
I follow the stream for hours
to some houses on its bank,
houses pink with dawn,
filled with other people and their food.
I retie my head scarf.
I watch from behind the trees
while women and girls
help men and boys
get ready to leave with the sheep.
I choose the one who smiled
as she gave her boy food.
I ask her,
not right away,
while the morning chatter continues,
Kurdish and Turkish mixed together,
but after,
when the women
go back to their houses.
I smooth my skirt.
I open her door,
Mama’s coin in my open palm.
“Please, mother.
Do you have food for me and my sisters?
Our village was burned.
Our parents killed.
Please, mother?”
She closes my hand around the coin and answers,
“Come.”
She pulls me inside
onto the warm soft carpet.
Colors rise through the soles of my feet.
Cinnamon surrounds me.
My mouth fills with wet.
She cuts a slab of cheese,
bread and olives,
hot tea
for me.
“Eat slowly, so it
stays down,” she tells me.
Warmth flows
from my throat
to my toes
to my crown
to the tips of my fingers
with each swallow.
My belly’s full so fast.
The bread and cheese
sit before me.
Inside a cloth she wraps
basturma
bastegh
cheese
halva
nuts
foods
rich
dense and dry.
They will take us
over mountains.
She asks no questions.
She wraps and ties the cloth
tight and secure like a swaddled child.
She folds the cheese inside the bread.
I put it in my pocket. Our eyes meet.
She sees through my dress and scarf to me.
She places one hand on the side of my head.
A kerchief cannot hide a mother’s touch. She says,
“Your clothes, they are good. Stay like this.
Don’t let them know. Hide till nightfall.
Soldiers were here a few days ago.”
My clothes.
My face burns.
If soldiers catch us,
what good could
these clothes do?
Soldiers would strip me
like all the girls at the river.
Girl after girl, naked.
I saw them.
Young boys died clothed.
I’d be stripped
and they’d know,
and then what?