By Fatimah Asghar
Here's your auntie, in her best gold-threaded shalwaar
kameez, made small by this land of american men.
Everyday she prays. Rolls attah & pounds the keema
at night watches the bodies of these glistening men.
Big and muscular, neck full of veins, bulging in the pen.
Her eyes kajaled & wide, glued to sweaty american men.
She smiles as guilty as a bride without blood, her love
of this new country, cold snow & naked american men.
"Stop living in a soap opera" yells her husband, fresh
from work, demanding his dinner: american. Men
take & take & yet you idolize them still, watch
your auntie as she builds her silent altar to them—
her knees fold on the rundown mattress, a prayer to WWE
Her tasbeeh & TV: the only things she puts before her husband.
She covers bruises & never lets us eat leftovers: a good wife.
It’s something in their nature: what america does to men.
They can’t touch anyone without teeth & spit
unless one strips the other of their human skin.
Even now, you don’t get it. But whenever it's on you watch
them snarl like mad dogs in a cage—these american men.
Now that you're older your auntie calls to say he hit
her again, that this didn’t happen before he became american.
You know its true & try to help, but what can you do?
You, little Fatimah, who still worships him?
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While Adam was in College Park interviewing for a job in a lab (which he got) and paying his first month's rent for his new apartment, and Maddy was at the house where she's cat-sitting, I got to spend Monday with Cheryl. We brought in Indian food and watched Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which was pretty bad but not for the reasons I'd heard -- I actually liked Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg-as-the-Joker Lex Luthor, thought it was an interesting take on the character, and I loved Bruce Wayne's relationship with Diana Prince, but there were five warg battles too many, the plot made no sense, and the dialogue was awful, plus too damn many flashbacks and dream sequences!
Adam and Christine got back from College Park and wanted to know if we could all watch Like Crazy, which we wanted to see because of Anton Yelchin and they wanted to see because it was supposed to be a rom-com. The acting is good, but there is absolutely no comedy and very little romance, so I wouldn't recommend it as a date movie or any sort of feel-good movie. Then they went out to dinner and Cheryl and I watched A Royal Night Out just because we were in the mood for some George VI and actual rom-com. After Cheryl went home, Paul and I had dinner with Maddy, who'd spent the day planning a birthday party long-distance for a friend, and watched Bones> Amazonia at the National Zoo:
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