Self-Care

Have you tried
rose hydrosol? Smokey quartz
in a steel bottle

of glacial water? Tincture
drawn from the stamens
of daylilies grown
on the western sides

of two-story homes?
Pancreas of toad?
Deodorant paste?

Have you removed
your metal fillings? Made peace
with your mother? With all
the mothers you can? Or tried

car exhaust? Holding your face
to the steaming kettle?
Primal screamed into

a down-alternative pillow
in a wood while tree-bathing?
Have you finally stopped
shoulding all over yourself?

Has your copay increased?
Right hip stiffened?
Has the shore risen

as you closed up the shop?
And have you put your weight
behind its glass door to keep
the ocean out? All of it?

Rang the singing bowl
next to the sloping toilet?
Mainlined lithium?

Colored in another mandala?
Have you looked
yourself in the mirror
and found the blessed halo

of a ring light in each iris?
Have you been content enough
being this content? Whose

shop was it?

Solmaz Sharif (2021)

_{I sourced this poem from Sharif’s 2022 book, Customs.}

Things I’ve been loving:

Last week, I watched Rengaine (known as Hold Back in English), a Parisian film about an Arab woman who is engaged to a Black man, which stirs up quite the discussion among her 40 (!) brothers. It is really funny, a bit heartbreaking, and has a sharp perspective on the hypocritical ideas of race and ethnicity that people can be stubborn to let go of. I saw it at The Metrograph and loved it! It doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere, but hopefully it will show up on Mubi or Criterion sometime soon.