Sasha Pimentel Chacón

Abaya

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Here I am thirteen
watching the stiffness

in my father’s back
while their kohl-rimmed eyes

watch me. The women
wearing black are loose

as silk, all folds and ripples
but their eyes, like deer,

are caught.
This is a good deal

their husband says, a good deal
to my father, here to manage men

and computers at the Arabian
American Oil Company, who is

just now fingering
each orange chain,

who is feeling
how heavy

each carat weighs
in his palm, who

is telling me now see,
how lucky you are, how lucky.

Later he will use this saying
slapping the soles of my feet

or thumbing the buckle
of his belt when I ask to see

a boy, but now the dealer is slicing
off the price twenty riyals

for my birthday present,
so they shake

hands like I have
seen men do before, all clenching

of skin and sweat as promise.
This is a good deal:

we do not cover ourselves
in public, we do not wear abaya.

But by now I am sweating too,
wearing my father

and his necklace
inside my black hair,

the gold chain cold
as small teeth on my neck.

 

Return to Volume 2.5

 

 

 

 
 

 

All files © 2005-2012 Blood Orange Review