the hookah
I thought it was a vase—
towering red glass, ornate as a trophy,
snaking tubes to control the water level.
The tapered piece on the end of the pipe—
to drain the vase, obviously.
What child hasn’t seen one thing
& thought it simpler.
* * *
Sedo & Teta never smoked
(not that they let us grandchildren see).
So picture me at 22 visiting for the first time in a decade, seeing anew:
Sedo! You smoke hookah?
* * *
I imagine sedo & teta
before they were grandparents,
young in The Old Country,
packing for the new—
wrapping the glass
in the handwoven fabrics
of Ramallah,
tying the sleeves of thobes
secure around the hookah’s fragile curves—
hoping, praying, it would
survive the suitcase & continents.
* * *
He demurs:
On special occasions…
& I laugh.
It’s okay, Sedo. I smoke too.
He fiddles his worry beads.
No, no, habibti,
women do not smoke.
What he meant was:
Women smoking isn’t proper.
What I heard was:
You’re no woman.
* * *
& truly, he could see, I’m no woman—
not متحول جنسيا or متحولة جنسيا; not مُخَنَّث or خنيث—
but something else: جنس ثالث a third gender. Maybe هما & انتما or هو/هي or هما/انتما.
Maybe I’m a being neither of us have vocabulary for. Whatever I am, I know
I’m not so fragile as the antique hookah. I will not disappear on puffs of smoke
or breaths of word. I can survive longer journeys to find my home.
Mandy Shunnarah (they/them) is an Alabama-born Appalachian and Palestinian-American writer who calls Columbus, Ohio, home. Their essays, poetry, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, and others. They are the winner of the Porter House Review 2024 Editor’s Prize in Poetry and are supported by the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. Their first book, Midwest Shreds: Skating Through America’s Heartland, was released in July 2024 from Belt Publishing. Read more at mandyshunnarah.com.