Mamma Mervat and Aunt Noon, the women who cared for me in Amman. They are originally Palestinian, from Nablus.
Mural on the Edward Said Music Conservatory in Ramallah, Palestine. The little cartoon boy is Handala, a symbol of Palestinian resistance that Mervat loved.
I tell strangers about her
A Palestinian from Nablus
Tell them she’s my grandmother
An Al-Masri
We live in the basement
She doesn’t believe in heaters
I wear the socks Aunt Sabah sent
They’ll keep me warm
She smokes like a chimney
Marlboro Light Blues
She never eats with me
“I’m just too full of smoke”
Always talking on the phone
“Ello? Ello? Ah salaam alaykum!”
She’s rarely ever home
Unless the Turkish soap opera is on
A well-educated single mother
She covered at 45 when religion found her
There were three men who called her their lover
But she rejected them all for God
Or was it for her freedom?
She comes and goes like the wind.
Each day I go and I come
Always out past curfew
I leave the house before she wakes
Running to the local cafe
By 7 hiding in its coffee and cakes
She gets worried if I’m not out
She gets worried if I’m not being wild
Tries to get me to marry one of the 5 cousins
“So you can really be my child.”
I protest like a storybook princess
I refuse like she did
“Look for a man, Kendall, not a male”
By 23 she was divorced with a kid
It made her strong and wise.
Like the goddess of wisdom
Minerva
She is the queen of her own little kingdom
In the building on Jakarta Street
My Muslim Mama Mervat
