We talk about blood –

the way it pools in basins and nails,

turns brown when you leave it to soak too long

and stains. 
Tayta has lived in this house forty two years


            and learns to repurpose her memories,

shudders while we wait for the fireworks to echo,

says that we build our veins

            into the places we choose to stay,

says that they hid bread in the walls

            during the war

            and Um Jamal died full

            next door in the house

                        with the red water

                                    and heartbreak in the bathtub,

says that the first one passes

            and the grief bleeds into all the others, 
and what are we in the end

            but the children of war,

and what is war

            but a mother disciplining her careless children.
But what about the blood on our hands, Tayta?


            What about the people who left

                        and the stories baba doesn’t tell anymore?
Baba’s hands are weathered

            from tearing and replanting roots –  

his palms are the geography of every place

            we have bled and fled,

his home is built in cherished memories

            and forgetting,

says that we were lucky,

            we the land of opportunity

                        doors wide open

                                    future bathed in sunlight children,

but the homeland landscape in his eyes lingers


            as he tells me that I could never survive back there

                        with my loud voice and my Australian English,

says that

            it is always political
And what are we

            but the children of politics,

and what are politics

            but a father disciplining his unjust children. 


But what about the blood on our hands, Baba?

What about the white men

            and the people who left 
We call living the war, survival
We call remembering it, gratitude
We call refusing to

            weakness.
Baba hurts his back at work,

shows us the scars from that one time

            he got his arm stuck in the machine

            and the blood clots under his nails,

and mama says the sacrifice happens before the bleeding,

says that the fireworks took his hope with their echoes

            and now we cannot dream straight anymore,

says that they packed all their things in the dark

            and boarded the boat to Cyprus,

says the coastline over Beirut still makes her cry,

says that it isn’t always quite sadness.
And what are we

            but the children of sadness,

and what is sadness

            but home calling us to come back. 
But what about the blood on our hands, Mama?

            What about the lives we build

                        and the ones we don’t?

What about the people who leave?

What about the white men

            and the stories baba doesn’t tell anymore?

What name do you put on a mass grave?


Are we still casualties of war

            if not the dead

                        but the pooling in the aftermath?
The post-terrorism,
            lead boot identity children,

I saw myself on the front page of the newspaper

            wearing a different face the other week,

and now Jihad is a dirty word and Shakespeare is irrelevant.


What do white men know of tragedies

            when they put the blood of our ancestors on our hands?
And who are our younger siblings

                        but the maskless villains

                                    of a world that they have never known

            to not hate them,

and what were you wearing on September 11, 2001?

and why do we all look so different now? 
And how long must we stay hidden?
And what are we

            but the children of hiding?

And what is hiding

            but an orphaned sense of identity

            trying to distinguish between the call of home

            and the false promise of something better?


But what about the blood on our hands?
They crossed the sea for you

            and now all they can taste is the salt in their eyes 


Does guilt pass down through generations?


Some days I just want to know if home will remember my name

            or if it ever learnt it
But what about the blood on our hands?
I look at myself in the mirror

            and ask the white girl to own her privilege;

it wasn’t my ancestors who built this city

            on rattling bones and smallpox,

but what am i

            but a benefactor

                        of the actions of somebody else’s
And what about the blood of my hands?

the way it mixes

            and pools,

and who’s blood is it now?


Maybe,

in the end,

we all die of broken hearts
And what is a heart

            but a place to hide the blood a while?

Let it know that there are shades of grief

            that stain brown when you leave them too long

            and those that were brown to begin with
And what about the blood of my hands, Mama?


Which one is it, Mama?

Are we ever going back, Mama?

What about the people who left?


What about death? 

What about building graves on black bones and smallpox?
And all these white memories –

the ones with the

            loud voices and the

            Australian English,

where do I put those? 
And what are we

            but the children of context?

And what is context but

            a map of all the places we have been? 
And finally

the blood pools in the arches of my feet

                        and the borders of my palms


            in condolence,

in sorry –
 I will be better,

even when homeland’s call feels foreign,

even when we look like this,

even in opportunistic tongues, 
even

            n traitor skin.