Sestina for an Idiom
I was fifteen and all fights with my father ended
In Urdu. My hair didn’t turn white in the sun!
He cried. I could not bear the awkward truth.
His hair was proof of wisdom, of age.
And because it was knowledge
I wanted, to be of the world
Not in it, the idiom cut me: I knew nothing of the world
And less of myself. Everyday the newscast ended
At 9 p.m. and he’d summarize it. His knowledge
Of treachery did not gleam in the sun;
The cruelty of Cain did not enrage or age.
So what was passion, his white-haired truth?
He cried in the bathroom when his brother died. Truth
Is: I could’ve offered comfort, but didn’t. The world
Outside our miserly flat was vast. I couldn’t wait to age,
Get out, harden like a plaster cast. Years passed. We ended
Things well. I pushed his wheelchair out in the sun.
He listened. I spoke. What fantastic knowledge,
To watch his eyes whiten. Is all knowledge
Bought with pain? He spoke the truth
When he said the weather’s blue and the sun
A foible—mind adrift again—the world
Tilted on its axis. I give thanks for what ended
Well: his death was permission to age
Overnight, like a prince of indeterminate age,
A fable more textbook knowledge
Than children’s story. When our story ended,
Goodness died: this is truth
As bland as hair. The world
Is the story of a mother who sat in the sun
In Hyderabad, in 1965, to knit a woolen vest, the sun
Is weak in America she said. Wear this. What age
Was he? Thirty-three. He flew across the world,
The itch of his mother’s faulty knowledge
Was unbearable. He didn’t tell her the truth:
He ripped the vest off before boarding. But how I ended
Up is a spot of sun-lit knowledge
That made my age some bit of truth.
The world bleached us both. Day ended.
