My swimmers clutch bellies with bulge-eyed worry
the day after our first team wall sit.
They confuse sore abs with mutant stomach bugs
or spells that come from leaving windows cracked at night.
Amer is a giant-breed bush baby throttling
like a boulder into a wadi. Banan is an ambling camel
nibbling weeds everywhere.
Leen is a salamander with the rhythm of a salsa dancer,
Sama is springy as a frog.
But the girls miss 25% of swim practices
in order to bleed outside of their bodies.
Our school imports grass
to cover the lands of Moab.
We are the only green spot seen from an airplane
or from Google Earth Jordan.
Who am I to turn dust into greenery?
To change the geometric patterns seen by a satellite's eyes?
I quietly doubt everything,
watching the skies.
This country has cracks
filled with streams and 50-meter waterfalls.
It takes climbing deep
deep deep deep down
to find that purple and green and red world called the wadi.
Hasham grins with the glee of excuse:
"Miss, miss, miss, my maid ran away.
So no one put my swim suit into the dryer."
"But, Hasham, why didn't you?"
Hasham stares,
he's seen neither a wave nor a tsunami.
This country's sea is so salty
I'm flung horizontal
and no water mammals survive for my students to copy.
It takes digging deep
deep deep deep down in the black mud
to find earth slick with fresh spring water.
At the first swim meet, Ibrahim mimes a pterodactyl
baby birthing war dance for victory,
shouting, "Yalla, ya shabab! Yalla!"
They're laughing, cheering, diving, losing, winning.
My swimmers pull each other from these races clutching stomachs
they call earned instead of given.
Ala is late to practice but completes penance lunges
with the cartoonish vertical walk
of a character from Cosby's Junkyard Gang.
Mohammad is an eager goat scrambling
from lane rope to lane rope.
Nour has the wingspan and the patience of a desert hawk.
Haneen can't join the team at all.
Wet clothing clings too close to the female body.
Akram swims like Tarzan with his face out of the water,
Omar refuses to pump pushups off his knees,
Ziad is a calm and careful plodder
like a beetle searching both sides of a leaf.
Jafar is silent and as buoyant as an oryx,
and Shahem is the harmless Wile E. Coyote
frozen running midair off a cliff.
Who am I to turn hoofs into fins?
I weigh everything,
afraid to linger
and turn into a pillar of salt.
I question everything,
afraid I am breeding mutant fish goats of dysfunction.
To what world will I send them?
I am a porpoise flipping sunbaked
out of water, a teacher with big lessons
left to learn. I am like Bugs Bunny
who keeps asking for a carrot without hearing
there's another cure for hunger here.
This country has water in unexpected places,
its cracks, its mud, the bellies of its people.
It takes searching deep
deep deep deep down within
my desert swimmers, deep
inside anyone I meet, deep inside me,
for what my father calls the imaginario.
The part of the soul who can make into reality
what one has only heard about
or seen inside a dream.
the day after our first team wall sit.
They confuse sore abs with mutant stomach bugs
or spells that come from leaving windows cracked at night.
Amer is a giant-breed bush baby throttling
like a boulder into a wadi. Banan is an ambling camel
nibbling weeds everywhere.
Leen is a salamander with the rhythm of a salsa dancer,
Sama is springy as a frog.
But the girls miss 25% of swim practices
in order to bleed outside of their bodies.
Our school imports grass
to cover the lands of Moab.
We are the only green spot seen from an airplane
or from Google Earth Jordan.
Who am I to turn dust into greenery?
To change the geometric patterns seen by a satellite's eyes?
I quietly doubt everything,
watching the skies.
This country has cracks
filled with streams and 50-meter waterfalls.
It takes climbing deep
deep deep deep down
to find that purple and green and red world called the wadi.
Hasham grins with the glee of excuse:
"Miss, miss, miss, my maid ran away.
So no one put my swim suit into the dryer."
"But, Hasham, why didn't you?"
Hasham stares,
he's seen neither a wave nor a tsunami.
This country's sea is so salty
I'm flung horizontal
and no water mammals survive for my students to copy.
It takes digging deep
deep deep deep down in the black mud
to find earth slick with fresh spring water.
At the first swim meet, Ibrahim mimes a pterodactyl
baby birthing war dance for victory,
shouting, "Yalla, ya shabab! Yalla!"
They're laughing, cheering, diving, losing, winning.
My swimmers pull each other from these races clutching stomachs
they call earned instead of given.
Ala is late to practice but completes penance lunges
with the cartoonish vertical walk
of a character from Cosby's Junkyard Gang.
Mohammad is an eager goat scrambling
from lane rope to lane rope.
Nour has the wingspan and the patience of a desert hawk.
Haneen can't join the team at all.
Wet clothing clings too close to the female body.
Akram swims like Tarzan with his face out of the water,
Omar refuses to pump pushups off his knees,
Ziad is a calm and careful plodder
like a beetle searching both sides of a leaf.
Jafar is silent and as buoyant as an oryx,
and Shahem is the harmless Wile E. Coyote
frozen running midair off a cliff.
Who am I to turn hoofs into fins?
I weigh everything,
afraid to linger
and turn into a pillar of salt.
I question everything,
afraid I am breeding mutant fish goats of dysfunction.
To what world will I send them?
I am a porpoise flipping sunbaked
out of water, a teacher with big lessons
left to learn. I am like Bugs Bunny
who keeps asking for a carrot without hearing
there's another cure for hunger here.
This country has water in unexpected places,
its cracks, its mud, the bellies of its people.
It takes searching deep
deep deep deep down within
my desert swimmers, deep
inside anyone I meet, deep inside me,
for what my father calls the imaginario.
The part of the soul who can make into reality
what one has only heard about
or seen inside a dream.
I LOVE THIS ONE.
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