Reza's Restaurant, Chicago, 1997
the waiters milled about filling sumac
shakers clearing away
plates of onion and radish
my father pointed to each person whispered
Persian about the old man with the silver
beard whispered Arab about the woman with
the eye mole Persian the teenager pouring
water White the man on the phone
I was eight
still soft as a thumb and amazed
I asked how he could possibly tell when
they were all brown-
skin-dark-haired like us almost everyone
in the restaurant looked like us
he smiled a proud
little smile a warm nest
of lip said it's easy said we're just uglier
he returned to his lamb but I was baffled hardly
touched my gheimeh I had big glasses and bad
teeth I felt plenty Persian
when the woman
with light eyes and blonde-brown
hair left our check my father looked at me
I said Arab? he shook his head laughed
we drove home I grew up it took years to
put together what my father
meant that day my father who listened
exclusively to the Rolling Stones
who called the Beatles
a band for girls
my father who wore only black even
around the house whose umbrella
made it rain whose arms could
cut chicken wire and make stew and
bulged with old farm scars my father my
father my father built
the world the first sound I ever heard
was his voice whispering the azan
in my right ear I didn't need anything
else my father cherished
that we were ugly and so being ugly
was blessed I smiled with all my teeth
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