Like Water on Stone (11 page)

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Authors: Dana Walrath

BOOK: Like Water on Stone
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Shahen
We cross the Euphrates
on a moonless night.
Above the cold water
rushing between our legs
a thick smell hovers,
pulls my gut.
Our skirts float up
as we cross.
Mariam sits
on my shoulders.
Her feet dip into the bitter water
as it rises to my chest.
Muddy mounds
on the opposite shore
snap into forms.
Heaps of bodies
strewn on water’s edge.
I pull Mariam
down into the water,
pressing her face to my chest.
Her legs drag through the water.
I grab Sosi’s hand.
“Close your eyes.
Just hold on.
Keep them closed.
Like a game.
Just hold on.”
Tied to her back,
the empty pot
starts to fill.
I turn it
so it empties.
“I’ve got you.
Hold on.
Keep them closed.
Just hold on.”
I steer us
to the shore.
Water pours
from the pot.
Up the bank
past the bodies,
heaps of them,
bloated,
cut open.
“Just hold on.
Keep them closed.
Hold on tight.”
Throats slit,
whole families
dead together,
mothers,
old men,
daughters,
young boys.
“Keep them closed.
Just hold on.
Ten more steps.”
I let go only
when all they can see
when they open their eyes
are shadows
of muddy mounds.
I close my eyes and can see far away
to the heaps of young men,
their hands tied together
for their safety
till the trouble ends.
Shot
in a line,
falling
in a heap,
like the juice
from my stomach
that heaves
to the ground.
DAY 14
Sosi
It is day.
Time to sleep,
but I cannot.
If I close my eyes
I see them
by the river.
The smell
will never
leave.
I didn’t mean to kill
the red bird.
I only cut the wool.
Mariam
Sosi sits
on the pot.
She won’t speak.
Shahen beats
a stone
with a stick.
It breaks.
He gets another
and another,
still beating.
His lips
spit words
into the air.
“Stupid.
Papa.
Fool.”
DAY 15
Shahen
With each step
I grind small stones
into the earth.
Each stone
like Papa’s head.
Papa’s head.
Papa’s head.
I step on it.
I kick it.
Fool.
Fool.
Stupid fool.
So little food.
The pot and pockets empty.
Now it’s only seams
and coins we cannot spend.
How can we get there
with so little food?
With mountains
cold and barren?
Fool.
Mariam’s lips
are drawn down,
her steps so short
and slow
I pull her up.
Her legs wrap
around my waist,
her arms around my neck.
Almost feather-light now,
she is asleep
in an instant.
Clouds block the stars.
I feel the river at my back
to know the way
back to the safety
of the mountains.
DAY 17
Mariam
Sosi gives me
three nuts,
three dried apricots,
and one small handful
of wheat
from the hem.
I want more.
She says no.
No more.
No more.
DAY 19
GERGER MOUNTAIN
Sosi
Opening the seams each day
for the food sewn inside by Mama
brings us close to her.
The imagined wrists,
the hem,
the two sides that come together in front,
surrounding me like Mama’s arms.
The seams of the collar like her necklace,
filled with apricot flesh dried
and bitter nuts taken
from inside hard wrinkled pits
together on our roof
last summer.
I let the cracked wheat
from the hem
soften in my mouth
for hours
while we walk
and walk.
I never want to eat that last bite
from Mama.
DAY 21
GÜNGÖRMUŞ MOUNTAIN
Shahen
I pour the last bits of wheat
from the seam of my coat
into Sosi’s open palm.
But something long and thin
still sticks in there,
light but firm.
Sosi divides the wheat
as I work it out
bit by bit.
Mariam’s hungry eyes
stick to my coat
till it emerges:
a quill
from an eagle.
The
mizrap
.
What good is this?
Ardziv
He tossed my quill
into a bush,
his anger giving him the heat
and strength
he could not get
from food.
Hunters know this.
Our bellies are empty
when we chase.
Our wings
beat the air.
Our talons grab
and choke.
Fury does not leave us
till we eat.
Sosi
I say it’s for my body’s needs
and walk back to the place
where he threw it.
I pretend
and I squat.
The young moon rose
to help me find it,
catching the white
of the shaft
in its light.
The tapered, curved white line
divides the feather into two parts,
connected but unequal,
the spray of white down at its base
so soft in my palm.
Rich earth-brown feather fibers
like straight strong lines of fringe
from each side of the shaft,
widening, then tapering
to the tip,
where the feather has a pattern,
spots, almost stripes, of lighter color,
like petals or tiny leaves
dyed into its yarn.
I found this quill with Mama.
Papa held it in his hand
while we danced.
He will hold it again
for me to dance
with Vahan.
DAY 22
NEMRUT MOUNTAIN
Shahen
I drive us extra hard that night,
mashing Papa’s head
into the earth
with each step.
Master of another barren
windswept summit
before dawn.
As earth and rock
give way
to broken stones
under us,
I see them to the east.
Massive headless stone bodies
sitting ramrod straight
in a row with a
pointed peak behind them.
Six of them,
feet evenly spaced.
And on the ground around them
huge heads sprout from the earth.
Heads without noses,
that one like Papa,
an eagle,
and a lion.
This can’t be real.
It must be the hunger
playing tricks.
No Papa.
No quills.
No eagles.
But my sisters see them too.
Mariam
The eagle calls me.
Just his stone head.
He has no body,
just a giant head
rising from the ground.
I let go of Shahen
and go to him.
I kiss the tip
of his beak.
Sosi
A pagan temple.
It must be.
Gods forgotten
high on a mountaintop,
just as our God
has forgotten us.
Heads cut off
like those at the river.
I pull Mariam from the eagle.
We need to hide
before dawn comes.
Ardziv
The little one,
Mariam,
lay very still,
large, dark eyes wide open,
head flung back toward the sky.
She opened her mouth,
open shut,
open shut.
Then she swallowed the air
three times more,
open shut,
and she swallowed.
Just like a hatchling
she spoke to me.
I rose to the sky
for the hunt.
DAY 23
KOCAHISAR MOUNTAIN
Mariam
Look
Food
Rabbit
We have food.
Good
Food
Shahen
I strike one stone
with the edge of another
as I study the stars.
I brought us too far south.
We’ll lose the safety
of the ridge this way.
We must go a bit north
as we go west.
My sisters do not
know the stars.
They won’t know
I’ve added steps.
A sharp-edged flake
splits off. I slice into the
still-warm flesh,
lifting chunks of muscle
from the bone.
My sisters’ mouths
are red with rabbit blood,
their white teeth gleaming.
DAY 24
ONUR MOUNTAIN
Shahen
Sosi
We cannot eat snake.
Why not?
It’s food.
We’re hungry
and it’s here
like a gift.
But snake?
It’s not snake.
It’s a gift.
Don’t question it.
Just eat.
And why is it here?
Who would give
us a snake?
An eagle.
Don’t be a fool.
I’m not a fool.
If we had fire
I’d make soup
in the pot.
But we don’t.
Just eat.
It’s good.
Like the back
of a lamb.
Lamb?
Yes.
Lamb.
Ardziv
As they starved
I hunted harder,
heading down
from the mountains
to valleys
warming
well into summer.
For five straight days
I placed small animals
on the ground
where they slept
just as the sun set.
The children woke
and ate them raw
before starting
the night’s run.
But when a brown she-bear
with large curved claws
and pointed teeth,
ravenous from raising cubs,
caught the scent of blood
and began to trail them,
I had to stop.
Instead of leaving meat for them,
I left a trail
of small animals
for the bear and her cubs,
taking them far from the children.
DAY 30
KOÇALI MOUNTAIN
Sosi
When Mariam walks
on her own
—
she does it less and less
—
Shahen’s hands rise
to his chin and lip
to search for hairs
that will never come,
not without food.
Shahen does not
need to know
my monthly blood
has stopped.
I am glad.
How would
I stay clean
here
if it
didn’t
stop?
Shahen
Mariam
Come here,
little bird.
Time to play
the bird game?
No.
Writing bird?
No.
Then I
will write
on you,
little bird.
Remember bird?
No.
What, then?
Mama.
Write Mama.
Mama:
swan down, wave,
smile, smile,
half smile.
Curve.
Smiles gone.
Swan down, wave,
curve, curve,
half curve.
Mama.

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